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Blazing Cat Fur’s horrific experience with single-payer health care in Toronto

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I spotted this story from Blazing Cat Fur while browsing at The Blog of Walker.

Excerpt:

I suppose I should have been tipped off by the fact that the surgeon who performed my Mom’s angioplasty last Friday couldn’t be bothered to check up on her afterward. This same surgeon discharged her Saturday morning from TGH, Toronto General Hospital – by phone.

Tuesday afternoon my Mother suffered a “False Aneurysm“, this it was explained, is a fairly common side effect caused by the anti-clotting medication she has been prescribed. However the Brit’s inform me that “The most common cause of pseudoaneursym is femoral artery puncture during cardiac catheterisation.”

[…]She was scared, in a great deal of pain and very weak by the time she hit TGH’s ER, though commendably the paramedics had stabilized her – this was 6:20 PM. The paramedics stayed with her, monitoring her vitals and answering my questions as best they could until well after their shift ended at 7. At 8:30 PM, in order to release the paramedics my 84 year old Mother was officially admitted to TGH. Admission consisted of moving her from the ambulance gurney to a hospital gurney and pushing her 20 yards down the corridor, next to the homeless guy with the festering sores on his legs. The attentive care of the paramedics was replaced by – nothing.

We waited over an hour for a resident to finally stop by and inquire what the matter was. My shocked stare, which arose after she asked in all seriousness, if the angioplasty had been a success, caused her to retreat and summon the physician on duty. Wisely the attending doctor suggested that a physical examination was in order, she then disappeared with the resident in tow. A nurse was dispatched who informed us that my Mother would have to be undressed for the examination. Since this Angel of Mercy made no offer to assist I took it upon myself to undress my bedridden mother in a public corridor, in full view of the passing parade of visitors, patients and staff – truth be told the homeless guy was pretty discrete or at least preoccupied.

It goes on, and on, and on.

This is one of the saddest things I have ever read.

And it happens in England, too

Here is a Daily Mail story that I spotted over at The Western Experience. (And also ECM sent it)

Excerpt:

Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.

The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets – even a caravan – went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.

Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.

Latest figures show that over the past two years there were at least:

* 63 births in ambulances and 608 in transit to hospitals;

* 117 births in A&E departments, four in minor injury units and two in medical assessment areas;

* 115 births on other hospital wards and 36 in other unspecified areas including corridors;

* 399 in parts of maternity units other than labour beds, including postnatal and antenatal wards and reception areas.

Additionally, overstretched maternity units shut their doors to any more women in labour on 553 occasions last year.

The Western Experience also linked to the story of a man who had his appendix removed by the NHS – TWICE!

I knew that the left was concerned about the doomsday overpopulation myths, but this is ridiculous!

Further study

Learn more about health care policy from my previous posts on health care:

Polemics

Christians destroy their own religious freedom by supporting single-payer health care

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Muddling Towards Maturity linked to a Chuck Colson column which makes an essential point about how allowing a secular government to control health care is bad for Christians who want to live authentic Christian lives in the public square. Muddling writes, “Chuck Colson tells the story of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic college that won’t allow abortion, sterilization, and contraception to be covered by its employees’ health care plan.”

Excerpt:

[The Catholic Church] teaches that abortion, sterilization, and contraception are immoral. So it makes sense that a conservative Catholic college would make sure that its health plan doesn’t cover such practices.

Well, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a different word for Belmont Abbey College: “sexist.”

Using reasoning that could only be concocted by a consummate bureaucrat, the director of the agency’s Charlotte office has said that denying contraception is sexist “because only females take oral prescription contraceptives. By denying coverage, men are not affected, only women.”

The EEOC stepped in because eight college employees complained about the lack of coverage. The EEOC has now ordered the college to find a resolution. Even though North Carolina law protects religious institutions from having to cover contraception, abortion, and voluntary sterilization, the case could end up in the federal courts.

Colson also talks about how Catholic adoption agencies were forced to close as a result of state control of medical care provision. Catholic organizations do a ton of good in the world, so I find it appalling that so many Catholics voted for Obama. If you marginalize the worldview that produces the good works, you don’t get to keep the good works. The good works were rationally grounded by the good worldview.

This is a MUST-READ for those of you who believe that big government programs, like single-payer health care, are compatible with Christianity. If you want to put the needs of the poor above the gospel, that’s fine. But, in my view, Jesus put the gospel above the needs of the poor.

Have a look:

1Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 2″But not during the Feast,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

3While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

4Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages[a] and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

6″Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

(Mark 14:1-9, NIV)

And you can see this problem in many other areas as well, such as welfare, hate crime bills and the removal of conscience protections. Few Christians, and certainly not those who support single-payer health care, would even recognize the imposition of the government’s vision of morality and purpose on individuals as fascism. Even homeschooling Christians sometimes support big government secular socialism which can lead to banning homeschooling.

Many Christians voted for the most pro-abortion President ever, and for the most anti-family, anti-marriage, anti-child President ever. I think this is a consequence of the church’s complete unwillingness to connect what goes on in the church with anything objectively real outside the church. We tell people stories that make them feel certain emotions, and they use that emotionalized conception of Christianity to decide who to vote for.

2008 voting broken by religious groups

2008 voting broken by religious groups

(Click for larger image)

I think what is really happening here is that Christians who prefer single-payer health care on “moral grounds” are either 1) trying to justify stealing money from their neighbors to pay for their own risky, irresponsible decisions, or 2) trying to embrace trendy, popular policies that put them in a favorable light with the secular neighbors. Either way, it’s a loss for God. Doing good is the job of free individuals, not the job of a secular, socialist government.

Mentoring

MUST-READ: Guest post: Purposeful parenting today

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The following post is a guest post from my friend Andrew.

Purposeful Parenting in Today’s World

Bob drives his bright red sports car 140 kilometres per hour on the highway and is pulled over by a police officer.  The officer gives Bob a:

  1. friendly greeting
  2. cookie
  3. speeding ticket

Susan prefers sleeping late to showing up at work on time.  After arriving at the office two to three hours late for two weeks in a row, Susan’s boss tells her to:

  1. get to bed a little earlier
  2. take some vacation time to rest up
  3. look for another job

This reality check comes from an article on parenting by Dr. Bill Maier from Focus on the Family.  It shows in a humorous way how real life consequences will catch up with your child sooner or later (the answer to both questions is number 3, of course).

Now here are a couple of my own:

Your son starts university and soon realizes that one of his professors is a hostile feminist.  The feminist professor:

  1. immediately concedes her radical feminist views and offers to help your son with his studies
  2. tells the class what an asset conservatism and/or Christianity is to our society
  3. publicly humiliates your son when he voices an objection, and makes every effort to fail him

Your daughter enters the workforce.  Her colleagues say things like:

  1. how I can become a Christian just like you?
  2. maybe we could start a Bible study together
  3. are you for real – do you actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead

Are your children going to be able to handle this?

Let me start off with some general principles that I think you will find useful for parenting in general.  Then in the second half of this post I want to share some more ideas that will help you be more purposeful in the formation of your child and help them prepare for what life will throw at them – ideas that I hope will help you to address the last two scenarios above.

Your children need you to be their parent, not their friend

Children need and want their parents to lay down the rules, to set boundaries, and to give them guidance.  They really need to know where they stand.  While they have friends elsewhere, they don’t get parenting from anywhere else.  Your children don’t have to like you, but they have to respect and obey you.  When you make the rules clear and consistent and your children choose to disobey them, then the punishment is their choice rather than your infliction.  This should really be a separate point, but don’t be afraid to discipline your children.  This will help them in the long run.

Your children respect your authority and guidance more than you think

Parents tend to underestimate the influence that they have on their children and overestimate the influence that friends have.  Don’t be afraid to teach your children, give them your opinion and set boundaries.

Follow through or your children won’t take you seriously

Children learn quickly, so if you state a consequence you have to be willing to follow through with it.  If you don’t, your words will be empty to them and they will not respect you or listen to you.  If you tell your child that if they hit their sibling one more time you will call off the big trip to the zoo then you have to be willing to do this, so choose your words carefully!

Short term pain, long term gain

This was our motto when our children were infants, and it still is.  Addressing problems immediately will be painful, but they will only become a habit or worse problems down the road if you don’t.  We learned pretty quickly that running to our crying baby every hour during the night would quiet them down and give us instant gratification at a time when we were sleep-deprived, but we also learned that if we suffered the short term pain of letting them cry it out a bit then our baby would learn how to settle themselves and sleep better.

Let boys be boys and girls be girls

Don’t let feminist ideology creep into the way you parent.  It’s healthy for girls to play ‘house’, nurture their dolls, and play dress-up.  And it’s okay for boys to try ‘dangerous’ things, be rambunctious, and open doors for ladies.  Boys and girls are innately different, and that’s okay.

Okay, these are some great general guidelines that have helped us with our parenting so far.  Now for some deeper principles that I hope will prepare your child for life:

Be purposeful with your parenting…have a plan and an end goal in mind

You can’t guarantee how your children will turn out, but if you are purposeful with your parenting and have an end goal rather than just hoping they will turn out okay, there is a good chance you will be successful.  For my wife and I, the end goal is to train our children so that when they come of age we will be able to launch them into life with them being capable of standing on their own two feet (e.g., capable of dealing effectively with the third and fourth situations at the start of this post).  This is our conscious plan.  Children need to be gradually given more and more freedom and responsibility as they demonstrate that they can handle it.  Don’t wait until they are about to leave the nest to give them their freedom because it may be more than they can handle.  You have a relatively small window of opportunity to train your children.  This window decreases with time, so don’t waste it.

Allow your children to fail under controlled circumstances

Failure is a great teacher, so allow your children to fail when they are young.  For example, let them spend some of their hard earned chore money on a cheap toy that will fall apart after the first use.  This will teach them the value of money and give them discretion in spending.  You don’t want them to learn this lesson the hard way later on when they are buying their first house.  Let them go to their math test in grade 10 without having studied because they really wanted to play.  Better to have them learn this lesson now than in univer$ity.

Expose them to scenarios that they will experience later and teach them how to deal with them

Again, in a controlled setting you need to carefully expose your children to what they will encounter in life.  Take them to a university debate between a Christian and an atheist.  Let them hear the arguments, see how the audience reacts, and allow them to feel uncomfortable.  Show them a news article about schoolchildren who were told that they had to send a letter to their government representative with a certain view.  Let your child hear a homosexual activist on the radio.  Supervise them and discuss with them what they have just experienced.  Teach them how to respond in these scenarios.  You won’t be able to shelter them for life, so gradually expose them under controlled conditions and teach them how to deal and respond to what they encounter.

Train yourself, and do it well

Listen, training up your children is your responsibility and no one else’s.  Not only that, but you are the only one that is going to prepare them properly – you can no longer rely on school, church, friend’s parents, etc.  In order to train them to respond to life circumstances and defend their beliefs you are going to have to learn this stuff yourself.  Take the time to read books, listen to lectures/debates, etc.  As a parent I know it is really tough to find the time to do this when you are working full time or are busy with life, but you have to do it.  Don’t let your life get too busy with distractions because otherwise your purposeful parenting plan won’t happen, it requires purposeful daily decisions. What is the point of having children only to lose them to militant atheist, leftist, feminist, homosexual, etc. ideology because you didn’t prepare them properly.

Train your children well

I know I’ve touched on this already, but let me expand a bit.  This is really, really important!  A lot of people around your children are going to teach them bad ideas that are opposite to your own – their school, their friends and the government will all do this.  You need to be purposeful in teaching them moral values and virtues, otherwise they probably won’t learn them.  Training your children is your responsibility.  Be purposeful in teaching your children virtues like loyalty, bravery, chivalry, respect, modesty (especially for girls), and discipline.  Teach them about freedom of speech, religious liberty, chastity, capitalism, free markets, the sanctity of life, post-modern culture, traditional marriage, and abstinence.  Also give them books with characters who portray these things and discuss these things with your children on every occasion (as an aside, don’t let your children rot in front of the trash that is shown on television…rather teach them to love to read books).

Most importantly, as a Christian who believes that Christianity is objectively true, I can’t stress enough how important it is to teach your children about Christianity.  All religions are testable, and our Christian faith can hold its own and can compete well in the marketplace of ideas.  The evidence is very much on our side and we stand on the shoulders of giants who have gone before us.  Having said this, we live in a world that is very hostile to Christianity and you need to teach your children the evidence for their faith.  They need to know the Bible inside-out and backwards, but they also need to know how to defend their faith using other evidence (hint: Christian apologetics; see the Resources section below).  Teaching them how to do this will give them the courage to defend what they believe to be true.  You also need to teach your children about different worldviews and religions, and why they don’t make sense.

I know, this all sounds like a tremendous amount of work, but your child is relying on you and no one else to prepare them for life.  It’s actually easier than you think.  Just start off with a few books.  This is so much more important than teaching them how to be on time, how to drive a car, how to take a math test, how to swim, and all of the other things that you will obviously teach them.  As I said above, you have a relatively small window of opportunity to train your children.  This window decreases with time, so don’t waste it.  For a first step please look at the Resources section below.

And lastly:

Put your marriage first

Make sure that you put your marriage ahead of your parenting.  I am convinced that one of the best things that you can do for your children is to give them the security of a stable family life and to model what a good marriage looks like.  Let them witness husband and wife roles, let them see that you love each other, and let them see you apologize to each other when you get angry or make a mistake.  Don’t get so involved in your children’s life that you neglect your spouse.  If you do this then once your children are out of the house (if your marriage survives that long), you and your spouse won’t know each other anymore.  Parenting in today’s world requires a parenting team, so you need to make sure your team is strong.

UPDATE: This is Wintery Knight. I wanted to include this bit of wisdom from commenter Shalini:

One other important thing is when one parent is disciplining the child, the other parent MUST NOT talk in defense of the child. Parents should always agree on disciplining, ’cause if one of the parents try taking sides with the kid, chances are the kid is going to assume that one parent is good and the other is bad. It doesn’t help the case in anyway!

Andrew liked this comment,  so I thought I would add it to the post.

A few resources:

Parenting

Christian Apologetics

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