Thanks Crawford

As you frequently do with your pieces, you provide some insight into the issue of healthcare so often smothered in tired rhetoric.

Specifically:
1. Governments have known what our current demographics would be for years and have done very little. They've failed to realign our education system to value trades and they have not made the strategic investments in healthcare needed. Many of us have been pointing this out for many, many years. Instead we've transferred wealth either out of the country or to the wealthy.
2. As a society far too many of us continue to devalue taking care of our own health in favour of entertainment and consumption.
3. Finally, the solution can't always be to "cut costs". Yes there are new ways of doing things which can reduce costs. At the same time we need to make budget allocations based on inclusive and compassionate values, not on expediency and the long discredited belief that we must transfer our common wealth to corporations so that they will use it to benefit society.
4. And finally, let's celebrate the women and men who work in our healthcare system! Dedicated and compassionate they are. As are the vast majority of our "civil servants" who are routinely maligned these days.

Mr Killian is very lucky

Great article! Mr Killian is very lucky. Strokes are a major killer.
Everyone should have some basic First Aid training and should be able to recognize and respond to the symptoms of stroke or heart attack.
Maybe some training could be rolled into the BC drivers liscence testing.(maybe thats the case now?) Even the manditory boating liscence requires some basic first aid.

I have a friend in the local hospital. What bothers me is the number of elderly, stuck on crowded wards, waiting for space in nursing homes. Some of them have been there for over a year. Theres no respect for our seniors. Its a crisis in healthcare and worthy of a story.

crisis in the medical system

"... by now I suspected that the major problems in Canadian healthcare are TV and parking."

Crawford, I'm glad you had a positive, helpful experience, and I realize that your comment above is simply a flippant aside not to be taken seriously, but the reality for many people is quite different. The speed with which you were cared for, the good communication between your doctors, the willingness of a doctor to actually listen to you, all that sounds like you are describing a different medical system than the one I and many others have encountered.

I personally know people, and have read of many others, who did not receive good care at an emergency ward, who were misdiagnosed, neglected, or turned away. There is a real crisis many people feel completely abandoned by the medical system.

Lions' Gate Hospital emergency dept. service

Lions' Gate Hospital has the best and quickest emergency dept. of any I've visited - this includes VGH, St. Paul's, and Mt. St. Vincent. Jim Pattison's large donation for the emerg's reconstruction has made it deluxe looking also.

When it works!

I myself have had some good and bad experiences with the medical system in B.C. When it is good the medical system works very well, But when! I had an unfortunate encounter with a delta drainage ditch that resulted in my obtaining a broken neck. The day after the accident after seeing my doctor and getting x-rays I was sent by taxi to Burnaby General emergency. After being admitted at 1:30pm I waited without any attendance or help until 11:30pm when they decided that the specialist was not going to show up. Only then did they give me something for my now excruciating pain. At 7:30am the next morning the specialist showed up as I was sitting up in bead having breakfast. He looked at my chart, looked at me and said "Do you realize that you have a broken neck?" I said yes. He then said that I was lucky that the hospital had not killed me, I was imediatly immobilized and moved to Lions Gate Hospital where my story took a turn for the better. Now almost 30 years later I am still most thankful for that specialist and his team at Lions Gate Hospital.

The level of care is often dependent on the wealth of the neighborhood or town you live in. After all that is where the best surgeons and doctors will always gravitate to?

Killian is a star patient --

Killian is a star patient -- he is following the advice to exercise and improve his diet. If were all as diligent, there would be fewer demands on the "system." How can "the system" induce more folks to take charge in this way?

Very lucky man

First rule when suspecting stroke, either have someone drive you or call an ambulance to go to emergency. Do not waste time going to see your doctor.

GPs can no longer admit patients to hospital in any event so you might as well skip that part of the process. All they can do is call to say you are coming and the hospital might well say "send them somewhere else".

I think the old system was better where at least one had continuity under your doctors care.

The BC Health System usually

The BC Health System usually works very well for serious, acute care situations, like strokes & heart attacks - especially if you get to the hospital quickly. It's the chronic situations that are still a problem - there's no easy answer for those except moving long-term care oldies into the appropriate facilities. One technique all hospitals could introduce is setting up a clinic next to the emergency department so that the non-emergency patients who treat the hospital like a clinic also get directed away from expensive hospital resources.
Oh, and the senior administrators could be drastically reduced in numbers & salaries.