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"We" took the baby and it is being cared for. The responsibility of getting/issuing passports rests squarely on the Canadian government. Blogger is clearly so buried in his hatred of the greatest country on earth, and unable to hide his massive inferiority complex, he leaps over the logical conclusion (Canada should have issued emergency passports) and goes right to the States Bashing.
You guys are fortunate enough that we're willing to care for your children who suffer at the hands of a woefully inadequate medical system (SERIUOSLY?!?! NO NICU BEDS IN ALL OF ONTARIO?), dumbass canucks.
Hell, you guys can't even brew a beer that doesn't taste like European Goat Piss.
Shut up and show the proper gratitude, Moosewankers.
After reading all of the above I have to say that the majority of every American response on here leads me to believe that you guys just cant stand to pass up an opportunity to make things all about you, and a fight at that. I'm sorry but the majority of you are rediculous and should be ashamed of the people you are. You make yourselves sound like terrible individuals who are nothing more than unevolved heartless beings with a taste for blood. None of the negative Americans on here seemed to give a shit about the poor baby thats sick and all alone in this world, who cares in whos boarder that is. I dont.
I dont believe that the person who originally wrote this ment to bash you and your system. Just merely to say that there are clearly issues with both systems. Why cant we speak up and say when there are problems, should we ignore the issues that are obvious and not speak of them when we are on certain land? Im sure you speak about your issues over there all the time and you sure feel the right to speak about ours, but we cant talk about yours? How does that work? And please, god, dont take that as a sucker punch any of you. You have to admit you have done your fair share of complaining about your own system in the past on your own soil. As are we about ours. Thats all it is. In a perfect world maybe all our healthcare would look a little more like our European friends. Who knows. I just know we wouldnt feel ours needs improvement.
I've been to that hospital (St.Joesphs) very recentely as my daughter was born there only a month ago. It plain out SUCKS!!! They are terribly disorginized, contracting out any one they can and loosing what once was decent healthcare. My baby was born 6"11 premature and we were wrongly imprisoned for almost a week. But thats another issue entirely.
Point being the left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing anymore. Too much healthcare for those who dont need it and none to not enough for those desperate. Shouldn't some of our high ass taxes cover this? They certainly dont cover garbage in this city with a one bag limit, and our roads are brutal as well. Must be going to the revamp of the malls. Priorities! Who is driving this boat anyway?
However, I'm sure there would have been a bed available if the parents were wealthy, right? If all they were missing was an available bed why didnt they just purchase one from the states so that the parents could stay together with the child here in Canada. Wouldn't it have been cheaper in the long run anyway? And if not that, why is the mother not considered a package deal with the child especially in a situation like this one, and as suggested why couldnt she be escourted by someone once there, 24 hours a day. If not both parents, why not just the mother? She doesnt have a record. Honestly what is she going to do? Visit her sick baby and at the same time plot and plant a bomb to blow up Major City Buffalo on her way out? Come on, thats rediculous, what harm is she really?
Our healthcare is taking a dive especially in that last decade or so. It used to be cleaner, there used to be more staff and there used to be faster service for more people. We should complain about it, and hell, if the American's want to complain about it too, I welcome it. Maybe with more upset about it we will be heard because situations like this one should NEVER EVER HAPPEN ANYWHERE!
If I was religious I would pray for this baby. I will definatley be sure to keep her strong in my mind as a happy healthy baby reunited with her parents soon. Just the thought of a scared sick lonely baby without its mother sickens me. As I know being a new mother how I would feel if it has of been mine. I am terribly sorry that this has happened and only wish that the best should come about really soon for all of them. I will be sure to keep myself posted.
Good Luck to you All!!
Then you haven't read much of his writings obviously.
As far as the rest of your post I really don't know where to start.
1. the 24 hour escort- How about instead Canada just issues a passport? It has to be cheaper and less effort than the numerous other options people have mentioned. They blame the US like it is unreasonable "Honestly what is she going to do? Visit her sick baby and at the same time plot and plant a bomb to blow up Major City Buffalo on her way out?" Instead of saying why can't Canada just get her a damn passport!
A: The United States!
To those who posted a positive note, thank you and may God Bless You
Why in gods name would people use this crisis to push a political agenda? And lets face it some were coming down on the US for not allowing access when Canada hadn't given these poor people emergency passports. I have all the sympathy in the world for the family but most of the remarks that caused the reactions were not from family and when you take a swing at someone you got to expect they'll swing back.
we can argue all day about eachothers healthcare system even though imo neither side should complain..the states have the right amount of equiptment and staff because they pay for it, sometimes steeply...canada doesn't at the cost of free healthcare...
now i hope every1 can agree that we all want the best for lil Ava.
p.s. @ Broken_quanta ty for ur post
For any Canadian that might be reading please know that we are not all like this. I consider my position on immigration to be very conservative (more than Bush Jr.) but this is not a place or a situation for that. We're talking about the case of a very sick baby who (I suspect because of some screw up) had to cross the border to get help in an allied country. I am 99% certain that the Canadian government will be paying for this, since it's system guarantees treatment and if it's anything like European systems that includes paying for private care if the public is insufficient/unavailable.
I am amused by how a public option (note that this does not abolish private care, alive and well in all countries with public healthcare) is considered too shoddy by so many and AT THE SAME TIME too much of a threat to allow it to compete with private care. As a resident of a country with true socialized medicine (Universal care for all in government run facilities) I fully recognize that the system has it's shortcomings, some of them quite serious. I also know that people would take to the streets if the possibility of American-style privatization was suggested, and that I'd be on those streets with them.
The passport issue is trickier and has more to do with security. Couldn't North America create a small Schengen Space to itself? A large number of EU nations allow free circulation of its citizens with their national ID, as well as other advantages in residence and the like. Of course that may involve the whole issue of the anti-ID paranoia that exists in the US (and maybe in Canada, who knows). I'm afraid that that truly is the decision of each country and I can understand the need for greater control, even if it is causing a huge problem in this particular situation.
I wish the baby and her family well.
There is absolutely no chance that anyone in the US is going to throw a baby out of a NICU because the parents can't pay. If you believe otherwise, you know nothing of us.
Second, you can get an emergency passport within 48-72 hours in Canada. It costs like $75.
Broken quanta is right. Canadians hear a gross mis-representation of what care is provided on an urgent & emergent basis here in the states (I've worked in both systems). I've provided many hundreds of thousands of dollars in free care to people who have had no means to pay. I consider the massive discounting of my work in Canada, along with the lack of access to tests and procedures we know patients need, as far more de-humanizing and de-moralizing. I love Canada, but the only people who love the system are those that don't have chronic or major illnesses. The 80% that are perfectly healthy rave about it.
Canaduh allows the muslin terrorists who attacked and kiled 3000 Americans to come and go freely, indeed welcoming them with open arms.
Canaduh makes no effort to police the border and keep the muslim terrorists that canaduh allows free reign on their side of the border, forcing the U.S. to police the border ourselves.
Canaduh has a crappy medical system, caused by "one payer public financing", which is incapable of aborbing one more critically ill baby, and the child is turned away.
Yet somehow, this is the fault of the United States, which has a medical system that DOES absorb and care for the critically ill patient that Canaduh is too far gone to save.
I have an idea. How about you fix your own health care system, and stay the hell on your side of the border. After all, it's not like WE need YOU.
I'll blame them for making socialized medicine seem cool and trendy, but they are innocent of anything in 9/11.
My parents knew each other.
And who cares who pays the bill for the care? The reality is that your crap medical system can't find room for a critically ill baby. Why? Cause your medical system sux. I didn't make it so, you did.
Guaranteed to get their baby shipped to another country? Here's an idea if you don't want to get into something then don't say anything about it, especially when it's BS. Hospitals "down here" are prohibited from turning away patients who need urgent care and every county has a hospital (at least one if not several) that provides health care to those that could not otherwise afford it. The cost of such use (ER instead of a doctor) may increase the overall cost but no one is denied vital or emergency health care.
Second, and back to the main point, what was the father convicted of? Canada issues it's own passports so who are you critical of? Canada issues an emergency passport and they are on their way. I got mine from the US in 3 hours once because of an urgent work issue, can't Canada move thing along? If the US stops daddy at the border that's another issue, but the parents not being able to get passports is Canada's.
Are you on crack? As any normal person can see I was responding to this quoted part of the original post.
"MS said "I won’t get into the relative merits of the American and Canadian health-care systems here." then "after all, at least the couple and their baby are guaranteed care up here"
And it is BS for two reasons, one the baby didn't get care in Canada, two no hospital in the US that had the facilities would of turned away that child. So what's your issue?
Suffice it to say, Canada's system is wonderful until you need to use it for something more than a basic medical procedure. This baby sure is lucky to have such gracious neighbors to her South, eh?
I do agree this story is heartbreaking, but I hope it forces you folks up in Canada to take a serious look at your unsustainable health coverage system. Our system is stressed enough by illegal immigrants from our South without having to deal with your spill-over.
The other point is Health insurance is NOT the same as access to health care. Even if uninsured, the baby would have been immediately transferred to the nearest NICU. Afterwords, the hospital would present the bill, the parents then turn out there pockets "try to squeeze blood from a stone". Eventually, the cost would be reduced to some very modest amount ( or nothing) and the balance recovered by higher prices to other patients.
The US does have such a system for foreign nationals who have medical emergencies and or other circumstances. The requirement for escort must be done privately and ICE will want someone to stand responsible for them. Obviously US taxpayers cain't be financially responsible for the cost. Really the simple deal would be Canada issuing a passport.
Oh, and Canada? You're welcome.
Oh, and how can you possibly justify the fact that out of the 300 hospitals in southern Ontario, not one had a NICU bed? And that you have to depend on Buffalo for one? Hamilton is home to 500,000 people as well as McMaster; Toronto is less than an hour via the QEW. It has the flagship hospitals for Canadian health care.
You're welcome, you ungrateful jackass.
I am daring to use the words, I will PRAY for your wife's complete recovery. Recovery rates for Leukemia are impressive.
As respects the preemie, that is confounding. NO neo-natal in all of Canada? My great niece was in NICU. They could accomodate 8 babies, and this is just ONE hospital, in a town with SIX NICU facilities, in a town of 1,000,000. Not an entire country.
If Canadian-style health care becomes a reality for us down here, how many sick Canadian babies will we be able to take care of after the Canadian-style health care rationing begins?
That would probably be about the same number of critically ill Americans that show up on your doorstep, which according to the U.S. State Department is approximately ZERO.
Thank you Michael for reminding me how insufferable most Canadians are these days.
Oh and as for the passports it wasn't a requirement for the past two yrs....yes it was better to have but it's been required as of June 1st 2009....
I'm an American and I'm going to half-apologize for the slight. My daughter spent a month in two NICUs (one of the things the story might be missing is that there all NICUs are not created equal, and so the "number of NICU beds available" depends on the seriousness of a baby's condition; the second NICU we visited was drawing patients from hundreds of miles away b/c it was the regional center for the most serious cases). My heart breaks for your family, it really does. And I too am angry at the (few) commenters griping about "who pays" or snidely suggesting that we "send the baby home" to die.
All that said, most of the Americans upthread are responding to an inane comment made by the host of this blog. Despite claiming that he didn't want to "get into the relative merits of the American and Canadian health-care systems here", he apparently couldn't resist taking a shot at us --- even while *our system* is trying to save your niece's life! That's in very poor taste, I think, and it's not so surprising that Americans on the board reacted the way they have.
As for the passport issue, it's obviously a cluterf**k all around. Surely there's a way for the Canadian G to get these people passports pronto. In the meantime, surely there's a Border Patrol or Buffalo PD officer willing to hang around with them (and on his own time, I'd wager) at the hospital. In my experience, *everyone* --- friends, employers, hospital officials, even the docs and nurses in the NICU, to say nothing of bureaucrats and internet wags --- underestimates the parents' need to be with a child in NICU. I hope they get reunited soon. If the wide publicity this story is garnering helps expedite the process, then I think it will be worth the cost in jerky comments.
Best of luck to you and yours.
You miss the numerous real points here. To name one of them, if we went to all-public and then experienced the set of problems we (some of us, at least, already) know we'd experience in exchange for ending the private system, then if in the future we suggested a "private option" alternative, that would be when we'd see a few of the more foamy-mouthed leftists exhibit the Rage! [tm] and other loss of control for which Mikey is notorious on this Web site.
To those American's so negative and self absorbed they cant see past their own ass' to see that their shit stinks too like everyone elses; Was your childhood so troubled that you feel as though the world is always against you?
This is about a child, NOT YOU!!!!!
You guys remind me of the bully in the class that no one wants to work with cause of poor attitude.
Shamefully, "The Moderate Voice" is what passes for moderate in this country.
Indeed, and that child is being taken care of by Americans. NOT YOU!!!!
It is the American health care system that had the resources. Not the Canadian one.
It is the American health care system that gears supply to demand. Not the Canadian one.
It is the American health care system that provides the vast majority of innovation in medicine for the whole damned world, not the Canadian one.
I am glad the child is here. The fact that he is here saved his life.
And I have no doubt that the very second the vaunted Canadian Health Care Waiting List System cannot care for a loved one Michael Stickings, too, will come to the states so that he may snatch some adequate (and modern) health care directly from the gift-horse's mouth.
Our entire reason for being is to be generous, helpful, and hopeful. We are a free people that comes to the aid of those in need. The problem is that we are seeing more and more that our help is taken and then it is thrown back in our faces. Mexico's drug killings are not because Mexico has a problem with corruption, but rather because America has the freedom to bear arms. This child is in the position it is in not because Canada's medical and insurance and state systems are incapable of providing the needed care and attention but rather America is irrational and cruel for not allowing non citizens to waltz across the borders at will. I ask you what countries military was the first to respond to the recent plane crash in South America? Who responded first and bent over backward after the tsunami 2 years ago? Where is the UN hosted? How many AIDS therapies came out of Russia recently?
I supposed to sum it up while we may come off as cruel and heartless, you will not find another people in this entire world who, as a group, are more caring, selfless, and giving of themselves up to and including their very lives, than the American people. Understand though that you may have the sweetest, most loyal, and caring dog in the world but if you keep kicking it eventually it will bite you.
It's about a crap "medical" system that can't absorb one critically ill baby.
Little Ava was born 14 weeks premature. Were the Parents ever notified that this may have been a possibilitiy? High risk pregancy? Family history?
Did the parents make any effort to make arrangements prior to Ava's birth? Did her Doctors?
I mean, it wasn't any secret that a passport would be required. What, two years notice isn't enough?
My oldest had to spend two weeks in a NICU. We had to GO ACROSS THE HALL. Why can't Canaduh afford to do the same? I mean, with that wonderful govenment run health care, and all the resorces of the country, y'all can't afford one little bitty bed?
No. The problem was that your government run health care system, that benefits from U.S. Research, cheap drugs that we pay for the development of, and has "free" health care for all, SUCKS!
I hope that Ava is healthy, and I have already prayed for her. And her parents.
I also pray that you all finally realize that you have a crap medical system, and make some attempt to fix that little problem. If Odumbo finally succeeds in implementing Canadian health care system here (or Brit, or Dutch, etc.), there won't BE any more research, or any more cheap drugs.
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This post started off with an insult to the United States. You expect us NOT to respond. How about deal with your own problems before you try to dictate what we do? That, or damned well do it yourselves, and stop whining about how unfair life is.
Moderate voice, my ass