Thread by @rkhamsi

As a recently repatriated Canadian, I understand the pride that Canadians take in the single-payer healthcare system (really, it's split by province).

But I believe that pride sometimes interferes with people's ability to see how it has been crumbling and the urgency for fixes.

At this point, it should also be clear that Covid isn't a question of individual risk. It is a question of societal risk.

It's not about how mild Covid was for you and your friends. It's about how there's no hospital beds or staff left. We need more of both.

Here's a snapshot of how far behind Canada's healthcare system is. I am so confused about why people here accept this as status quo.

https://twitter.com/patrickbrownont/status/1478366245099646977

There is *so much finger-pointing* about who is to blame for the situation we're in. But I think the greatest blame goes to those who have facilitated the deterioration of the the healthcare system. This cost cutting is costing us. There need to be more than platitudes to fix it.

If you think that the lack of hospital beds (and staff) doesn't have anything to do with school closures you are wrong.

If we had the healthcare capacity to cover COVID, we'd be making different decisions as a society.

The defunding of healthcare is the root of our problems.

We can argue about N95s and rapid tests until the cows come home — and believe me, I am passionate about these things — but the truest and most foundational thing we should be talking about is healthcare capacity (along with paid sick leave and other protection for workers).

We're talking about people dying on waitlists — and yet politicians don't really seem to offer anything in the way of concrete plans. And these deaths were from before the pandemic. Don't even get me started on délestage. cbc.ca/news/canada/mo…

We're talking about people trying to get a diagnosis, and getting bounced around until the cancer has progressed. What if this was your daughter, or your neighbor, or you? This is a system in need of repair. montrealgazette.com/news/local-new…

When I got here, I wondered, has it always been this bad? The answer is no.

Specialist physicians in 2020 reported a median wait time of 22.6 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment— compared with 9.3 weeks in 1993. fraserinstitute.org/studies/waitin…

And I have to confess my ignorance. I have been FLOORED at the number of people I know who have told me horror stories of getting sick in a different province from the one they live in and paying $$$$. healthydebate.ca/2015/07/topic/…

This story dates to 2016, but it found that #Quebec had the longest ER wait times in the Western world. Clearly Ça va bien aller won't be true with this situation, pandemic or not: globalnews.ca/news/2737837/q…

I have been overwhelmed with the brilliance of the people who work in healthcare here. I just wish the government would pay for more of them.

The public has been fighting about Covid interventions, but the most important of all is that *access * to healthcare is a human right.

Coda: @writeo notes rightly that @picardonhealth's writing on the healthcare system is a must-read. This one is a great summarization of the need for greater cohesiveness: theglobeandmail.com/opinion/canada…