They Break Bones in Canada

There was some flutter on February 5th when Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams announced he was flying to the U.S. for surgery on his heart.  Turns out, he learned America was the best place for him to go.  Williams had his procedure and, it turns out, had he undergone treatment in Canada they would have broken his bones:

The 60-year-old Williams said doctors detected a heart murmur last spring and told him that one of his heart valves wasn’t closing properly, creating a leakage.

His doctors in Canada presented him with two options – a full or partial sternotomy, both of which would’ve required breaking bones, he said.

What I found most interesting is once in America it was a simply procedure:

That’s where he was treated [the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami] by Dr. Joseph Lamelas, a cardiac surgeon who has performed more than 8,000 open-heart surgeries.

Williams said Lamelas made an incision under his arm that didn’t require any bone breakage.

“I wanted to get in, get out fast, get back to work in a short period of time,” the premier said.

One has to wonder why Canadian doctors would have needed to break his bones while in the U.S. they did not.  And this raising a sad fact about Socialized Medicine: the “elites” who often favor it can afford to go elsewhere:

“This was my heart, my choice and my health,” Williams said late Monday from his condominium in Sarasota, Fla.

Just Politics..? is not saying Mr. Williams is an “elite” but only that he obviously can afford to go elsewhere when it counts.  For those who cannot pay privately for better treatment (even though Liberals say they have healthcare so why would they need to?) they are left on waiting lists and, had Mr. Williams stayed in Canada, broken bones:

“I would’ve been criticized if I had stayed in Canada and had been perceived as jumping a line or a wait list. … I accept that. That’s public life,” he said.

And just reflect on that… stuck on a waiting list when his doctor said this to him:

Eight months later, in December, his doctors told him the problem had become severe and urged him to get his valve repaired immediately or risk heart failure, he said.