UPDATED AND BUMPED:
Ron Breakenridge has an excellent interview on this issue: Look for the episode on March 2, 2011. ( 3/2/2011 9:32:00 PM)
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PS: Before I could post this entry,
this article appeared on the Globe and Mail's website. The baby is going home.
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Let me start by saying I think the London hospital's decision about Baby Joseph is appalling and I hope his parents win the right to take him home. But the case has opened up the tiresome debate about the Canadian versus American health care systems. So, let me offer you several well written and fact based articles debunking the myths.
Debunking Canadian health care myths
O Canada, Health Care Myths From the Great White North
10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted
Public Health Care: Canadian perspective on myths and reality
Phantoms in the snow
Mythbusting Canadian Health Care -- Part I (I couldn't find a "Part II", but this one covers all the bases.)
Finally, I have lived in four Canadian provinces, including Ontario in the City of London, where I was attending the U of W.O. (In fact, on my way to school every day, I used to walk by the very hospital where this drama is unfolding.)
I have never had difficulty finding a family physician. I have on two occasions dropped the doctor I had because I was dissatisfied with his service and promptly found another one. I have never experienced an undue delay in getting diagnostic work done or getting in to see a specialist or having any procedure done in a hospital. Nor do I personally know anyone who has. To suggest that this case illustrates anything remotely resembling those mysterious "death panels" y'all seem to believe exist, or that THE BIG BAD GOVERNMENT runs the hospitals and makes the decisions, is ludicrous.
Health care is a provincial matter, BTW. What is true in one province, may not be true of another. There are ten provinces and three territories in Canada. That can result in a great range of scenarios, good or bad.
Y'all have been duped like a bunch of sheep.
Both of my parents passed away years ago. My father was in a hospital when he left us. My mom was in a nursing home. Their time had simply come.
In both cases the doctors had a frank discussion with us, advising us that the prospects were bleak and that our beloved parent was simply dieing; that any further attempts to prolong life was futile, and in my father's case, would only prolong his considerable pain.
Don't tell me you yanks don't also have the same kind of "facing reality" discussions with your doctors when a loved one is dieing.
Families can, understandably, become quite distraught and unable to accept the hard facts staring them in the face. That's perfectly normal. But this is not a case, nor are there cases, of hospitals and doctors pulling the plug without the family's consent. Get over it. It doesn't happen.
This case centered on whether or not the baby's parents could take him home, in other words, where he should die, not about whether he should be allowed to die, because he was dieing. I disagree with the hospital's decision, but I also recognize in the parent's desperation, a bit of the denial at play. If Baby Joseph could be allowed to die on God's terms, he could have been dead already. Being in a hospital with tubes stuck in him, is human intervention interfering with God's intentions, IMHO, not the other way around. It is the great advances in medical science by humans that mess with God's intentions.
Shit happens in life and sometimes it can be cruel and painful, especially if it involves a child. May God wrap his arms around Baby Joseph's loving parents and comfort them in their grief.
Labels: babies, health care debate
