My family and I moved from the US to Canada in the summer of 2023 and last week was the first time I had to make use my Services Card. I went to the ER in excruciating pain, had blood and urine labs done, a shot of pain killers then waited around (a long time) for a CT scan. The doctor said it might be a new record, but I had been bumped a few times by suspected stroke patients that came in, so totally understandable. Several hours later with a prescription slip in hand I exited the hospital. Easy as pie.
For anyone who has never had the displeasure of experiencing an American hospital you can not understand how much simpler and less stressful and cheap the Canadian system is. I dont know what it would have cost me in the USA, probably whatever my insurance deductible was, but it certainly was not $0. That state of not knowing what all this is going to cost you, and how you will afford it, makes an already awful experience even worse. Not being harassed for money on the way out, never once discussing the cost of something with the DR was truly eye opening.
TL:DR Thanks BC Health. You are not perfect but you are amazing. Anyone promoting American style health care here in Canada has either never experienced that gong show or is independently wealthy enough not to have to think about the costs.
(kidney stone for anyone who is curious. it was horrible)
Albertan here. A couple of years back my brother and my dad both died of cancer (an unrelated coincidence) and I had the same experience - there was never a moment of stress about money. There also never felt like there were any untoward delays; when a situation was urgent we were able to jump straight to the surgery/MRI/whatever. There were a few times where we had to wait a few weeks for an appointment, but those were always the low-priority or followup things.
I know a lot of people think of Alberta as “North Texas” and imagine it’s an American-style hellscape, but even if it might be a little below the general Canadian standards on some things it’s nowhere near. It’s important to be aware of the baselines that things are measured relative to.
I recently went in for emergency surgery. Stayed in the hospital for 10 days to recover. On the last day, the doctor came in and said “you’ll be discharged today”. I packed my stuff and they rolled me out the exit. While waiting for the cab, I thought they have forgotten to give me the bill. I asked the nurse and she said, “there’s no bill.” It was the best cab ride home ever.
Doctors, nurses and staff at the Grey Nuns Hospital were short staffed but phenomenal, professional and compassionate. Emergency wait was more than 10h due to lack of staff.
Yeah. IIRC the only out-of-pocket costs from my whole experience was the occasional cafeteria food and the parking fees.
Of course, none of this is to say that we shouldn’t always strive to be better. There’s always room to improve, if only because medical technology itself is steadily improving so we need to keep up with that. But it’s good to recognize that the situation’s really not all that bad as it is right now.