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AFRICA FEST 2007 - AUGUST 11, 2007 at WARNER PARK

Join African Association of Madison, Inc. for $25 per year:Oct - Sept.

Mail check to: AAM, PO Box 1016, Madison, WI 53701
Phone: 608-258-0261 -- Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: www.AfricanAssociation.org

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http://www.cnehealth.org/pubs/health_care_in_canada.pdf

"For example, in its 2001 annual survey involving more than 2,500 doctors in twelve different specialties, the Canadian think tank, the Fraser Institute, found that, for patients requiring surgery, the total average waiting time from the initial visit to the family doctor through to surgery was sixteen weeks, a significant increase over the last year of the study. In every category, physicians felt waiting times had exceeded “clinically reasonable” delays (Gratzer, 2002, pg 20). Canadians wait an average of 5 months for a cranial MRI scan; Americans just 3 days (Bell, et al, 1998). Indeed, Canada has fewer MRIs per capita than Iceland, Hungary, South Korea, and the Czech Republic (Gratzer, 2002, pg 53). Unsurprisingly, many choose to fly south to the US for diagnosis and treatment."

"Dozens of diagnostic and therapeutic products developed decades ago, in widespread use in other countries, are relatively unavailable to Canadians." "...The core requirement of the 1984 Act is that hospital and physician services be 100 per cent publicly financed. But as health care becomes less focused on hospital and physician care (together they comprise less than half of total health care expenditure in Canada) and more focused on community care and drugs (the latter now exceed physician costs), less and less healthcare treatment service is covered by medicare. Dental insurance, eye-care insurance, insurance for prescription drugs, ambulance services, medical devices, private health insurance covering the upgrading of hospital rooms and out of country insurance are all outside the scope of medicare.
For-profit clinics have sprung up across the country."

Is this really what we want? 5 months for a cranial MRI? Ridiculous...and perhaps fatal in some cases.

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