Public health system picks up the pieces

Re: “Private health care push prioritizes profit: lawyer,” Sept. 15. As a registered nurse who has worked in Great Britain and New Zealand, where the private health-care system supposedly runs parallel with the public system, I agree with lawyer Marjorie Brown’s views.

I have seen how the private hospital/clinic system overloads onto the public hospital system, creating an even larger burden on the public system. Private hospitals do the “easier” surgeries, have no waiting lists, provide their patients with tastefully decorated rooms and often the belief they are receiving superior care.

But when things go wrong, the public hospitals, which already have a large number of complex patients, are faced with even more complex patients, created by surgical complications from surgeries performed privately.

Why? The public hospital system has the expertise to manage these patients, whereas private hospitals do not.

Complex care is expensive, requires health-care providers with expert knowledge, expensive equipment and expensive diagnostic capabilities. Private facilities are profit-driven and do not pay for these experts or the equipment required.

I was part of a team that provided care to a woman who had “simple” varicosevein surgery in a private hospital. She had a cardiac arrest on the operating-room table and was subsequently transferred to a public hospital. Her husband was astounded by the excellent care his wife received in the public hospital. He thought that by paying for private care, he was paying for better care.

His wife fully recovered after a prolonged hospital stay, mostly in the intensivecare unit. A private hospital could not provide the care this woman required.

We must support public health care for the benefit of all Canadians. Alison Smith, RN Chemainus