1 More Indictment of Canada's Healthcare

When are people going to learn that Government delivered healthcare is a no win situation. The health care costs are huge and the standard of care poor. What don't people understand when it comes to the dangers and lack of value in government healthcare?

It would be one thing if government healthcare provided the best possible care and treatment while costing taxpayers an 'arm and a leg', but it's quite another when the healthcare is substandard and it can cost patients, literally (see all the c.difficile or flesh eating disease cases), and taxpayers, figuratively, an 'arm and a leg'.

CTV reports,

According to the report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), the chances of patients receiving the wrong medication or wrong dose was about 1 in 10 in 2005.

The chances of an adult contracting an infection while in an acute care hospital are about the same: 1 in 10, while the chances of a child contracting an infection while in hospital are about 1 in 12.

Incidents in which a foreign object is left behind in a surgical cavity are less common, affecting about 1 in 3,000 patients in Canadian hospitals (outside of Quebec and parts of Manitoba). Yet that still adds up to more than 200 incidents per year between 2003-2004 and 2005-2006.

Previous studies show that obese patients are at higher risk of having a foreign object left behind after surgery, though the reasons aren't clear.

Other higher risk groups include: patients who undergo emergency operations, those who have an unexpected change in operation or those who have a change in nursing or surgical staff during a procedure.

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