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MONTREAL — Some Montreal doctors added a dose of realism Saturday to the fiery debate south of the border that asked if Canada’s “socialized medicine” killed actress Natasha Richardson after she hit her head skiing on Mont Tremblant March 16.

“Canadacare may have killed Natasha,” screamed a headline in the New York Post. “Was Canada’s healthcare the problem?”asked another in the Chicago Tribune. The implication “is totally unjustified,” said Paul Saba, an emergency room doctor at Lachine Hospital and co-president of the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice. He flatly rejected the notion that a lack of funding for overall public health care contributes to fatal head injuries like the one that claimed the life of Richardson.

Saba stressed he was not commenting specifically about Richardson, but “any patient’s refusal of treatment is crucial” to the outcome. So is not wearing a ski helmet, he added. Richardson, 45, wasn’t wearing a ski helmet when she fell around noon and was walking and talking afterward. She also refused an ambulance that came for her about 45 minutes later. Another ambulance was called about 3 p.m. and she arrived at the Centre Hospitalier Laurentien in Ste. Agathe, 42 kilometres away, nearly four hours after her fall. Two hours afterward she was transferred by ambulance to the trauma centre at Montreal’s Hepital du Sacre-Coeur, 83 kilometres southeast of Ste. Agathe. An article in U.S. newspapers by Cory Franklin, a physician who lives in Wilmette, Ill., took sharp aim at the lack of CT brain scanners in some Quebec hospitals and the lack of helicopter ambulances.

“With prompt diagnosis by CT scan, and surgery to drain the blood, most patients survive,” Franklin wrote. “Could Richardson have received this care? Where it happened in Canada, no. In many American resorts, yes.” But a simple phone call Saturday to the radiology department at the Centre Hospitalier Laurentien revealed that the hospital is in fact equipped with a CT scanner. It was not known, however, whether the device, which can cost $1 million, was used on Richardson. As for the need for a medical helicopter, Saba said that while it would be helpful in longer-range cases, it might not have saved the actress.

“You have to do a cost-benefit analysis,” Saba said. “It takes time to get the helicopter’s medical team assembled, get the helicopter to the location of the patient, pack in the patient and fly the helicopter to Montreal.” But Michel Garner, head of the emergency department at Sacre-Coeur, said Mont-Tremblant is a two or two-and-a-half hour drive from Montreal. Ste. Agathe can be an hour’s drive away, he noted. “I’m certain some patients would benefit” from a helicopter system, he said. Paul Brunet, president of the Council for the protection of patients, said the question of whether a medical ambulance would have made a difference was moot. “If she had worn a helmet and accepted to see a doctor would there be any talk of this need for a helicopter?

Disclosure: I was injured in a skiing accident in Breckenridge Co. about 7 weeks ago. I thought I had only tweaked my knee but I hit my head (“had my bell rung”) and came to quickly (around 30 seconds). I have many years of abusing my body through sports and I am no stranger to pain, so I shook it off, collected my gear and finished the run. The next morning I was admitted to a local trauma center where I learned that I had completely severed the ligament (ACL) that runs under the kneecap. How I was able to to finish the run or walk that evening remains a mystery to me. But the staff was more concerned about my head injury… I wasn’t. The health care I received couldn’t have been better or more expensive. I guess the point I am trying to convey is that we all have choices and decisions to make at the time of an injury. I probably (definitely) made the wrong decision, yet I was lucky. Miss Richardson was not so fortunate. And in case you’re wondering, no, I never even considered wearing a helmet.




  1. Mr. Fusion says:

    #70, Jag,

    Well it’s great to see you visit again. Your wisdom and insight has been missed.

    8)

  2. Jägermeister says:

    #71 – Mr. Fusion

    Likewise. 🙂

  3. named says:

    71, 72…

    GET A ROOM!

  4. web says:

    #13 I say “patooy!” to the USA experiment, it clearly does not work for the disaffected and poor in society.

    The last time I had an arrangement like yours it was called a vacation. Who cuts your steak for you?

  5. This is an indictment of the American system. Even wealthy persons are conditioned to be conservative about their health care choices, because who want’s to mortgage their home to get a possibly unnecessary CT scan. In this case she could afford it, but I bet subconsciously she was asking it was entirely necessary. This is precisely why it’s risky to have user paid health care. Too many people will “take a chance”.

  6. mliving says:

    As a Canadian I almost lost my lunch and fell off my chair when i read the headline.

    While we might have to wait a few hours in emergency from time to time at least my family isn’t forced into bankruptcy because I develop a deadly disease.

    You Americans absolutely kill me. So arrogant, so ignorant and so damn oblivious to your own failings but so quick to kick the shit out of anyone who criticizes your faux democracy.

    Again… just so we’re clear… F@#%K-OFF AND DIE!

  7. Mr. Fusion says:

    #76, mliving,

    Just be to clear here, most Americans like Canada and Canadians. A majority of Canadians are envious of the Canadian health care and many other attributes.

    Please, don’t judge all of us by the few simpleton dolts you see here.

  8. jbellies says:

    (The Province of) Québec made policy for and administered Ms. Richardson’s health care. But I wouldn’t blame Québec either.

    Several posters seem to think that she should have been administered a CT scan by the ambulance attendants whom she shooed away. Do ambulances in other countries come equipped with CT scanners?

    Here in British Columbia, you have to wait 6+ months to get an echo scan after a heart operation … if it’s considered an “emergency” it might happen in a day or two.

    Finally, I want to suggest something totally new. The ambulance attendants were well-trained Francophones. I wonder if she would have responded if they had said in an Oxbridge accent (or even an educated Scottish accent, à la Dr. Findlay) “You really should come with me?” So my question is: “Did snobbery kill Natasha Richardson?”

  9. Smitty says:

    First – an important clarification. The Canadian health care system is not socialized. What we have are provincially-run health insurance programs, which are substantially superior to the thousands of competing and inefficient private health insurers in what passes for a US “system”.

    CNN’s dog-with-a-bone attitude toward this tragedy is weird. I am beginning to suspect the real story – which will never be admitted on CNN – is that one of the their divas was denied free lift tickets, booze, accommodation, meals – and thus they have decided to slander one of the best ski resorts in the eastern part of North America.

    CNN’s obsession with this story is setting off alarm bells. Something is going on about their motivation for their agenda of innuendos and near-slander – and they are not being honest about it. The US has more than enough problems (one can start with the failure of the US to stop the illegal export of weapons and drugs or US violations of its WTO and NAFTA commitments)to keep CNN busy. Clean up your own mess.


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