Underfunding puts our health at risk

As a regular patient at the MUHC, I can attest to the results of serious underfunding.

The health-care professionals — once you get to them — are wonderful. However, the administrative support is dangerously insufficient.

Last fall, I was to have surgery to remove a cancerous tumour. After a wait of two months, I contacted the hospital and was told, after some investigation, that there was a document indicating I was not to have the surgery. By then, the Christmas holidays loomed and the surgery was put off until January.

A second example: I was to have two types of radiation therapy and was called in for the wrong one first.

In another situation, I was given an appointment by an automated voice system for the same time as a previously scheduled appointment in another department, something I was told was “not supposed to happen” and was due to a shortage of staff.

Not to mention the dozens of calls to people who are not there because they work reduced hours.

I was told one nurse had to leave because of the stress of work overload. She transferred to the ER, where presumably it was less stressful.

Imagine if I did not keep a detailed ongoing file of meeting notes and copies of all treatment records.

Imagine if I had difficulty expressing myself, or were a recent immigrant who doesn’t understand the system.

Imagine if I were intimidated by the bureaucracy and didn’t question every decision made for my treatment.

My life could be in immediate danger, and the reasons would go unnoticed — it would just be attributed to the disease.

To insist, as Health Minister Gaétan Barrette is doing, that the MUHC is adequately funded, is ludicrous. Elizabeth Hirst, Montreal West