Another Canadian mom and baby sent to the States for neo-natal care.

Deja-vu. These cross-border-birth and neo-natal stories of Canadians forced to go to the States for healthcare are starting to all sound the same.

Here's another one from CTV.ca News , Oct. 4 2007:

"Another B.C. woman who delivered a premature baby has been sent to Seattle.
Carri Ash has become one of as many as 36 women this year who were sent to Washington State with their premature newborns.
"It's just ridiculous. We can spend all this money on the Olympics, but there's no room for me or this baby in Vancouver," Ash told CTV in Vancouver.
But the province's health minister says the reason for the transfers isn't because of a shortage of beds. Instead, George Abbott says the province is facing a short of trained health staff.
"We can wheel in extra units," said Abbott. "The challenge is having very specialized nursing care that is required for intensive care treated babies, and that's the challenge here. (It) is more on the nursing side."
When Ash gave birth staff tried to find a local hospital, but then found out there wasn't a space available to help her baby in all of Western Canada.
"They're like, 'oh, Children's or Women's (hospitals), or Alberta or wherever," she said.
"And they came in and said, 'you're going to Seattle, and I was like 'Oh!'"
The government has recently added four beds in Nanaimo while it sorts out how it will find and train nurses in neo-natal care.
But the NDP opposition says something needs to be done now. They want the province to give parents like Ash some support. The NDP is calling for a team to help families of mothers and babies while they're in Seattle.
"There's no support, no help in getting them down there," said Adrian Dix, the province's health critic."
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It's ironic for the NDP today saying 'something needs be done now'. They, along with Tommy Douglas, brought in "something" called socialized healthcare into Canada about forty years ago.

Despite multi-billions of tax dollars dumped into Canada's state-run medicare dream, the reality is that patients are shuffled to the States for care. Shh- don't tell Michael Moore!