If you think COVID-19 is a pandemic, think again! Cancer has and will continue to kill many, many more people than a virus! Just read the obituaries!
I am a grieving, bitter mother who has just lost her son to cancer. Cancer has also taken my husband, brother-in-law, relatives, and many, many friends. Why is it possible for three or four pharmaceutical companies to find a serum for a flu virus, yet it has been many years and billions in donations that cancer still runs rampant?
In addition to coping with a degrading disease as cancer, our health system has failed miserably. It is now a 3rd world health system in my opinion.
My son was weak and in need of a blood transfusion immediately, and would be hospitalized for further chemo treatments. We were told to bring him to the emergency entrance in Regina to be admitted right away. My son was left lying in emergency for 27 hours before finally getting admitted. To add to his problem of infection exposure before he got a room, he was put into a small room that separated each of several beds with only a plastic, temporary curtain. Not five feet from him was a drug addict that had feet infection for self-administered needles. The hallways and emergency rooms were filled and lined with young and elderly people awaiting treatment.
The staff were exceptional people who were dealing with an impossible task of giving proper medical treatment to so many patients. The conditions were too horrible for anyone to witness.
My daughter and I were constantly calling for transfusion, blood work, appointments. Communications between different hospitals, different departments had to be monitored by us constantly or they were left undone.
Building smaller hospitals is not an option. We need more beds, more staff to service the many rural and city population and new people entering Canada. We need workable hospitals, not glorified first aid stations!
Waiting 27 hours for treatment and a bed in a hospital is unacceptable!
Gina Eldstrom
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
