Question for Europeans and others outside Canada & U.S.A.

Ontario here.
I have a pal in Sweden and theirs is a mess too.
He strongly suggested we don't follow their example.
It seems to be the same the world over.
All health care is in crisis.

solar: I had heard that health care down under was supposed to be fairly good. In particular, I'd read something about how New Zealand had a health care plan similar to Canada's, but had to revise things in order to accommodate rising costs, etc. I'll have to investigate further to find out how much is true.

I can believe all health care is in crisis. Things are bound to get worse unless some changes are made, but I don't think two tier health care is the way to go.

It's sad and scary to think of what the future holds.

technically guam is part of the u.s. as an unincorporated territory, but anyhoo.

guam has a grand total of two (2) hospitals on island for a population of approx. 150,000. one is the naval hospital which caters to the military or when something really bad happens to the general public. the second is the guam memorial hospital (gmh) which is, and has been for years unaccredited.

gmh as chartered, must take all patients regardless of their ability to pay. a large number of outer island residents make their way to guam each year to take advantage of this situation and makes for massive deficit spending by the hospital.

there are private clinics which cater to those with medical insurance. these clinics can do many medical procedures but if major surgery or child birth is involved, one must go to gmh.

gmh in a move to get free medical service from the doctor's have a policy which requires doctor's of clinics or private practices to put in x number of hours at the hospital in order for them to use it when necessary. (it's free service to the extent that all the private doctor's have not been paid, for sometimes years of work)

this has upset many physicians and they have been leaving the island in large numbers.

so, when you feel that your health care system is bad, think of guam. at least you'll know that at least someone is worse off than you.

back later

pueo: It isn't that health care per se is bad here because it isn't. It isn't cost effective and the measures taken to cut the costs have started to erode the good care in terms of waiting lists. In other words, there just isn't enough to go around. Even so, I don't think that somewhere else being worse off than here is an excuse to go down the path of two tier health care. Your situation definitely needs to change and as a territory of the U.S.A., someone in the political arena needs to kick butt on behalf of Guam.