I had a medical emergency yesterday that may me realize how lucky I am to live in Canada.
I’m getting weekly immunotherapy allergy shots (which are also covered by the free healthcare here) and I had a bad reaction to a shot. They needed to give me 2 epipens and some ventilator drug and stretchered me in an ambulance to the hospital where I waited about 5-10 min (I was stable at this point) for a private room. They kept me there for like 4 hours with IV drip and prescribed me another EpiPen.
Total cost was 0 with no questions asked. I know for non life threatening injuries like broken bones you might be waiting a few hours to get in, but I’d rather it be like that then have the possibility of going in massive debt.
Interesting, I never realized it was also that slow to get in for the States. To be fair it’s not perfect here, surgery wait times can be really bad. I’m on a year long waitlist for deviated septum surgery and my dad waited quite a long time for a hip replacement and he was in a ton of pain everyday. But the thing is we also have the option to pay to get it done privately.