Patient waits for hours in Ontario hospital while having a heart attack

Jeff Blay wrote in “Better investment is needed in our health-care system,”
(St. Catharines Standard, Oct.20, 2008):

“Re: Health-care services a federal campaign issue, candidates say,
The Standard, Oct. 9.


Health care in the Niagara region (especially St. Catharines) should no doubt have been an issue in the federal election.


It's amazing how poor emergency room health care is -- in this city especially. I am a St. Catharines native, but I am currently a journalism student at Humber College in Toronto, and I have had experience at hospitals in the GTA. In my experiences at emergency rooms in Toronto and St. Catharines, there is no comparison.


It's appalling to see what kind of attention people get in the emergency room in St. Catharines


Something that disturbed me greatly was an experience this Thanksgiving weekend, when a relative was experiencing chest pains and was sure he was having a heart attack.


Family members rushed him into the St. Catharines General Hospital at 5 p. m. Saturday, and didn't receive any attention, or even get a room, until 1:30 a. m.


It was later discovered he was suffering a heart attack for the whole duration of the wait.


This is truly unacceptable and heartless. Although we have what is considered to be a privileged health-care system in Canada, and it is understood many other people are in need of emergency care, this cannot go on.


This is human life we are talking about!


It would be worth it for the government and citizens to put a little more money into the system, so that when people are on the verge of dying, they get the attention they need and deserve.”
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The attention at the federal level should be on reforming the Canada Health Act, shouldn’t it?

Health-care is primarily a PROVINCIAL responsibility and obligation. Why aren’t the McGuinty Liberals reforming their disastrous Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act? Why aren't Liberals held accountable for incidents such as the one documented by Blay? Liberals like to pretend that these kinds of incidents are merely anomalies; they are just hearsay, just random, anecdotal stories! Liberals don't want to acknowledge the kind of health-care horror story which Blay wrote about!

Local St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley ran in the 2007 election pretending there were no problems with health care in Ontario! Now Blay - along with so many others - is discovering the charade of relying on the Liberals for health care; and of being prevented by Liberal provincial law from being able to choose other health care provider options when the government fails to deliver timely care.

Why doesn’t Blay ask where the billions from Dalton McGuinty’s Health Tax have gone? How much "more money" should "government and citizens" have to pay? Why is Liberal-run health-care poor and appalling? Why isn’t Jim Bradley held to account to explain this – yet another – embarrassment in his Liberal-run health-care system, right here in Bradley’s own city? A patient sits waiting in Jim Bradley’s health-care system, having a heart attack, and is essentially ignored for hours - and this is the wonderful single-payer, universal health monopoly which Jim Bradley approves of?

Shameful - and probably unconstitutional as well. McCreith/Holmes, where are you? Ontario needs your decision now! We can no longer succumb to Liberal health-care hostage takers like Dalton McGuinty and Jim Bradley and their dangerous monopolistic ideology.
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update, Aug.30, 2011:
I hope Jeff Blay noticed how, since he wrote the above letter, 32 C.difficile infected patients ended up being killed in Jim Bradley's Liberal health-care prison-monopoly, right in Niagara.
I hope Jeff Blay writes another letter about that.
I hope Jeff Blay contacts Liberal Jim Bradley, and asks Ole Jimmy why he and his McGuinty Liberals were hiding from being made the subjects of scrutiny during the outbreak that was going on in Liberal-monopoly-run Ontario in 2008 - when Blay was writing his first letter!
Yeah: I hope Blay then asks Jim Bradley why the Liberals shouldn't be held responsible for homicide in the subsequent 32 Niagara C.diff deaths in 2011.
The St.Catharines Standard or Niagara This Week sure won't be asking their buddy Ole Jimmy 'bout that!
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