An announcement from the Vatican almost went unnoticed two weeks ago: there will soon be a new saint in Quebec.
I was in Sherbrooke last week, during a visit to the archdiocese for a project, and I learned that Pope Francis was going to canonize Mother Marie-Léonie Paradis (1840-1912), founder of the Little Sisters of the Sainte-Famille, a congregation created at the end of the 19th centurye century. If she was made blessed by John Paul II in 1984, it is a miracle by intercession which justifies her canonization. The nun was prayed to and a newborn female was saved from death in 1986 in intensive care in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. The fifth female saint of a select group of eight. The Church respects and even exceeds the parity criteria sometimes, it seems, but that’s another subject…
At the same time, another true story, that of a guy who, by wanting to avoid going to the emergency room for a real health problem (while respecting Minister Dubé’s request to avoid emergencies), tried to go through the normal system.
A worrying pain, not like that of an ordinary virus or bacteria, but something else, which also required urgent consultation. The man, as a good citizen, calls his family doctor’s GMF clinic. For a quick emergency appointment (the brochure says), the wait on the phone lasts at least an hour, with crappy music, and a woman answers the same thing four days in a row: sorry , all available appointments are filled for the day, you must call back tomorrow at 8 a.m.
– That’s what I’ve been doing for four days, he replies.
– Sorry, that’s how it is, we’ll have to try again tomorrow.
The guy is in pain and is bleeding. In another call register, he managed to have an appointment with his family doctor, but in a month. But he will not resign himself to waiting four weeks with this pain.
He calls a doctor friend late one Thursday morning. That same Thursday noon, the doctor friend sent a requisition for analyzes to a private laboratory. A testing appointment is scheduled at 3:10 p.m. (urine and blood test), and the results will be sent that same evening. Mind-blowing. Less than 12 hours. So it could be effective, he said to himself.
Let’s not shoot at the Ministers of Health or at the political class who have been trying to improve a system for 30 years. They have failed miserably and will not succeed in this life. We also know that it works quite well, with a few exceptions, when we “enter” the machine. Let us salute the effectiveness of the cure. But again, execrable examples also abound and we find them regularly reported in the media.
The example of the guy trying to get a date is symptomatic of a system that has reached the highest level of incompetence. We don’t say it by complaining, but by making a field diagnosis (heh…heh…). We have proof, with this private story, that it can be simple and otherwise effective.
Which brings me to the symbolic idea of collective action: for more than 30 years, we have been paying taxes for health services. About 50% of the provincial taxes I pay go to health, with no guarantee of rapid access to primary care. Where does it fail?
Let’s stop blaming politicians and doctors (although we could increase the number of graduates) and instead look at the bureaucracy and technocrats who bog down the apparatus of formalities to the detriment of humans. We remember that almost everywhere else in the rich and civilized world, we can see a doctor, and his caregivers, and be treated without delay. I know we have to pay, but perhaps this free system that we dreamed of several years ago is inadequate to treat all of our health problems? Maybe we should split it officially? Do we have the right to demand accountability for the colossal sums, personal and collective, which have been lost for too long? Do we have the right, through recourse or otherwise, to demand compensation for a system which has been operating with failures for 30 years, and whose admissions of failure are glaring with each change of minister or government?
Still, and it is not as cynical as it seems, perhaps we should mention Mother Marie-Léonie Paradis to hope for useful and effective care. And rejoice that a saint joins the healthcare staff!