What You See Doesn't Deceive When It Comes To Private And Public Health Services

It need not be a private versus public debate. BOTH can live side by side in harmony. Arguing against this reasonable and sensible approach is pure dogma.

The author's experience mirrors my own. Public hospitals are often rickety and plain stressful and depressing to go to. Just by plain simple personal observations and experiences we know it's a much more enoyable experience on the private side. When I went for a private MRI (the wait time on the public side was much longer. I got a an appointment the next day with the private clinic) on my knee it was a calm and relaxed atmostphere listening to classical music.

From Le Quebecois Libre:

"..One day, two eye doctors, two eye clinics. In the morning, a public hospital: run down, aging, understaffed and crowded. In the afternoon, a private clinic: state-of-the-art, spacious, efficient, and just pleasant to be in. To be clear, I have only praise for the doctors and staff at the hospital. They were generous with their time, patient with me and highly professional. I could not have asked for better or timelier treatment. But how quickly could I have seen them absent my mother’s intervention? Ironically, it is the private clinic and not the public hospital that is open to the masses. To get into the former, you need only ask; to get into the latter, you need a referral or connections.

On top of it all, the public system consumes ever-greater resources, year after year. Between 1997 and 2009, Quebec’s health budget went from 6.8% of GDP to 8.2%, with total spending more than doubling over the last two decades. In contrast, between 1998 and 2004 the average price of laser eye surgery went from $2,200 per eye to $1,350 and by 2011, had dipped to about $1,100. At the clinic I visited, prices started as low at $490. Incredibly, these figures are not even adjusted for inflation!

The private vs. public healthcare debate won’t get settled by my personal anecdote. But why does the public system feel dilapidated and the private clinic like such a marvel? Why can I get my eyes redone by one of the top surgeons in Canada by calling a reception desk, but I can’t see even a mediocre ophthalmologist about a potential emergency without getting a referral, spending the night in the ER, or having a connection? Why do I feel so grateful to a public-system doctor for agreeing to examine me, as if he were granting a favour and not providing a service? Any why does the thought of paying for a doctor offend some people so very much when it is the most normal thing in the world to pay for food, shelter, medication, higher education, and so forth?

I won’t claim that every public healthcare facility is failing, any more than I’ll argue that every private clinic is a success. Naturally, quality varies in both systems. But everything about the public hospital, from its budget to its equipment to its administration, is determined in the legislature, at the cabinet table, and in government offices. What the actual patients think affects literally nothing; they have no power or influence except to lobby the machinery of the state and hope for the best. Conversely, a truly private clinic has no way of getting funds except by convincing someone to part with them. They can only try to persuade us to give them our money in exchange for something we want in return.

In one system, those in charge know that patients are a captive market, with no alternative to their services. In the other, they know that their continued employment depends on whether they can please their clients. Personally, I know which group of people I would rather entrust with my health."