Universal Healthcare: a right or a privilege?

I’ve been in Canada for close to 4 years now and I know that the healthcare sector is far from perfect. However, there’s a wide gap between what I had before and what is obtainable here. I’m fortunate to be in a Province where you can access healthcare almost as soon as you start living here. Some other provinces are not that generous and would want you to stay for a certain number of months before you can be given a health card.

Few notes:

There are family clinics all over the city. If you need to see a doctor for everyday issues, they are available everywhere. To see a doctor, it’s better to book an appointment so that you won’t spend 2 hours in the waiting room as a walk-in patient.

Seeing the doctor is the easy part, if you need any medication, you have two options.

• Pay out of pocket
• Use health insurance if you have. Most employers provide a form of insurance for their staff. The insurance may not cover the costs of your medication fully, but at least it can be subsidized. If you and your spouse both have insurance, you may end up not paying anything at all.

Annual check ups, blood tests, ultrasound, mammograms, x-rays etc. are all covered by the Provincial government, so you don’t have to pay for them. I had a baby and didn’t pay any hospital bill, well, except parking fees. 😊

Emergency Room: I actually pray not to go to ER. If you are not really sure that your illness is an emergency, please just wait and go to a family clinic. Wait times at the ER are super crazy. You can wait for 3-5 hours before being attended to, simply because the priority is actually on those who need urgent attention.

Specialists: The family doctors can refer one to see a specialist, depending on how urgent the issue is, wait times can be as early as one week after referral to about 3 months or even more.

The system needs a lot of improvement, more family clinics, more specialists, more hospitals etc. I’m not a medical expert, but I’m sure there’s still a lot to be done.

Do you have any negative or positive experience? Let’s read from you. Share your experience in the comments.