I was listening to the ‘two bald guys with strong opinions’ radio show on CFRB Toronto, Feb.7, 2008, with hosts Michael Coren and Stephen LeDrew; the topic was wait-times in emergency rooms.
When the discussion turned to a story about a child with a broken bone being told to wait, Liberal windbag Stephen LeDrew at one point said ‘if you’re delayed five hours just buck up’!
LeDrew belittled such stories as anecdotal, and as such, meaningless in determining the sorry state of our health care system. When one caller, Debbie, said our health care system is frightening, LeDrew chortled derisively "Frightening because it’s so good?" LeDrew said ‘you can go to the States’ for health care ‘It’s only an hour away’ , mentioning that’s where Coren should go for his lobotomy.
Astounding.
LeDrew’s ridiculous Liberal babble was embarrassing and offensive, considering the gravity of the problems in this Liberal-run health monopoly. Coren was held speechless by LeDrew’s callous, lunkheaded attitude. “I’m incredulous” he told LeDrew at one point. When Coren tried to make the reasonable reference to other systems that have better access to health care, LeDrew had no rational answers except to belittle Coren that his argument is just “philosophical” and “ideological”. I suppose LeDrew’s wasn’t? LeDrew said to Coren ‘you don’t like the idea of public health’…yet as a coy lawyer, didn’t define what he means by “public health”. ‘Public health’ has nothing to do with a government-run health monopoly.
Coren at one point also rightly admonished a lunkheaded caller who was parroting babble about Tommy Douglas, asking the caller if he’d actually ever read anything by Douglas!
LeDrew could not comprehend Coren’s view that there are sensible alternatives to both the U.S. and to our health systems.
It was a great radio show to have listened to, if one wanted to hear a full-blown pompous Liberal lamely try to defend Ontario’s health care system.
The same day, the Toronto Sun (Feb.7, 2008) carried a story by Don Peat, “Patients dying in ‘hall of shame’: EMS. Paramedics allege 3 died while waiting for bed this week at Etobicoke General.”
The Sun said bed shortages, due to the Liberals having had closed three hospitals, have left emergency room patients routinely waiting “up to 10 hours” with ambulance paramedics in the Etobicoke General Hospital’s back hallways. Glenn Fontaine, paramedic union Local 416 chairman, claimed that one of the three patients who died within a 24-hour period went into cardiac arrest after waiting for three hours in the waiting room with chest pains.
YET, Liberal Stephen LeDrew says if you don’t like Ontario’s Liberal-run health monopoly, “GO TO THE STATES”!!!!
“JUST BUCK UP”, said Liberal windbag LeDrew!!
These Liberals are FLICKING UNBELIEVABLE!
A St. Catharines Standard (Oct.19,2007) story, “Wait times longest for seniors: study” reported that across Canada, 10% of patients admitted to ER had to wait 15 hours or longer for a bed and that the average age of those waiting 24 hours or more was 67, and 52% of these patients were female.
Three days earlier on Oct. 16, 2007, the St. Catharines Standard ran another story, “Warning sounded on bed shortages” stating that “bed shortages in local hospitals are getting worse”, with an eyewitness account from Dr. Keith Greenway about a cancer patient right in Niagara who passed away while waiting in the hallway for a bed.
Yet, it was only on Sept.30, 2006 that the Standard ran a story, “More hospital beds not in the cards: premier”, where Dalton McGuinty “deflected answers about funding additional beds to alleviate wait times”!!!
The St. Catharines Standard (Sept.29, 2007), during the election campaign, ran a story, “Emergency in health care”, as well as another story featuring Suzanne Aucoin, “Groups call for improved cancer care”, as well as James Wallace's “Clock ticking on healthcare system”, all detailing a plethora of problems within our health system.
Yet during the Sept. 2007 election campaign, St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley said precious little about these healthcare issues that have been fermenting under his government’s reign, as he was busy fear mongering about an imaginary fragmentation of our school system!
In each of these preceding St. Catharines Standard stories, no mention was made of, and no reaction was reported from our local MPP, Jim Bradley. It's as if good ol’Jim Bradley, then-Minister for Seniors, and Tourism, conveniently didn't have much to do about any of these severe systemic healthcare problems which he and his party have helped create.
So when today David Suzuki says politicians should be jailed for the crime of being anti-Kyoto, why isn’t someone putting Liberals in jail for the deaths occurring on their watch; in their health monopoly’s overcrowded emergency rooms?
What choice did Liberal Health minister George Smitherman give these patients who perished at Etobicoke General? Where were these people supposed to go?
To the United States? It’s bad enough Ontarians have been forced by the Liberals to go for to the States for regular health care, because of waiting lists – now the Liberals suggest we should go there for unexpected emergency care, too??
Is Liberal LeDrew’s pathetic joke actually becoming official George Smitherman Liberal health policy?
So when today David Suzuki says politicians should be jailed for the crime of being anti-Kyoto, why isn’t someone putting Liberals in jail for the deaths occurring on their watch; in their health monopoly’s overcrowded emergency rooms?
What choice did Liberal Health minister George Smitherman give these patients who perished at Etobicoke General? Where were these people supposed to go?
To the United States? It’s bad enough Ontarians have been forced by the Liberals to go for to the States for regular health care, because of waiting lists – now the Liberals suggest we should go there for unexpected emergency care, too??
Is Liberal LeDrew’s pathetic joke actually becoming official George Smitherman Liberal health policy?
By the way, included above at the top of the page is an advertisement insert which appeared in the St. Catharines Standard, also on Feb.7, 2008, for private MRI’s available in Buffalo for $300. The absurdity is that this same kind of service would be illegal if it was located across the Niagara River in Liberal-run Ontario!
A Midland Free Press (Nov.16, 2005) story reported: "Smitherman also was asked [by the Opposition] to comment on a report that waiting lists for some hospital operations are growing and denounced it as fabricated by 'Mike Harris and the gang at the Fraser Institute.' "
Who will Smitherman conveniently denounce now, for the emergency room wait-times and deaths, occurring under his watch in 2008?
What excuse will Smitherman and Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals fabricate this time?
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