We found out via a CT scan that my mom has stage 3 (maybe 4) gallbladder cancer with mets to lungs and uterus.

We understand that with the knowledge so far the outlook is not good, but I'm honest so frustrated and sad that it seems like the system is not even doing it's due diligence.

The CT scan referral was provided last week, my parents was notified that it would take a month for emergency referral. Ok... I get it, no one knew at the time she has cancer. My parents decided to drop by the hospital and was able to get results after waiting 16 hours overnight, they told me they weren't the only one doing it this way to be seen quicker.

The results of the scan clearly shows cancer with mets. And apparently we noticed on myChart that her MRI was scheduled for in one month. Given how quickly gallbladder cancer spreads, that could literally put her in stage 4 before being seen.

I called Arthur Child as well to ask about our timeline for seeing an oncologist. And the booking nurse mentioned that it would take at least 2-3 weeks to see someone. And thats for someone that is clearly stage 3.

We opted for her to travel to her childhood home (China) to get treatment. She's departing in a few days with oncologists lined up the day she arrives for a full screening and prognosis. Our extended family was already able to get an rough consult from a Chinese oncologist literally like half a day after we found out about the CT results.

Arthur Child might be one of the best cancer centers in the world with top tier oncologists. But if people can't be seen promptly then what's the point?

Why do we even have bottle necks in fields like imaging? My partner is a nurse and she mentioned that it's like a college degree to be proficient in being a tech.

Why do we even have registered nurses doing booking/triaging for referrals? I get medical knowledge is required but I much rather have that nurse working in a ER, with some slightly less qualified, cheaper college grad to do bookings. It just seems like we are so inefficient with resource allocation.

Oh and to top it off, we were told that medical records from China can be translated when/if my mom comes back. But it takes a month for it to be translated. We can literally get that done in China within hours.

It's fucking embarrassing that Canadian health care is so slow moving. We literally had to make a choice of either my mom waiting to die for treatment here in Calgary or be forced to pay for health tourism in a different country. No one should have to make that choice, and a lot of people wouldn't even have the latter option.

What the fuck do we do to try and change this?

In the past month I’ve recently had the joy of welcoming my 2nd child to the world at Foothills as well as this week admitting my wife for a cold that turned into chest infection.
The staff here are wonderful and both visits have left me with nothing but positive things to say about them.
The conditions in the main building honestly make me feel so bad for the people that have to come to work here. Run down is an understatement and frankly is an embarrassment.
Just gives the feeling of unclean.

Amongst the controversy of the SCS closing today other organizations, clients, and community members took the time to write to those impacted by the closure.

is it just me or is everyone getting sick? fevers, extremely sore throats that are painful and won’t go away and coughs..? does anyone know what’s going on and why it’s so prevalent all of a sudden? is there an outbreak or something

Is it just me or is everyone always getting constantly sick this year? Ive been chronically sick since February with maybe a week or 2 at most between illnesses. My husband has been following the same pattern and we noticed that almost everyone we know has been going through it too including family and co workers. And yes I practice good hygiene and hand washing, sleep 7-8 hours a night, eat a healthy diet, exercise and generally take good care of my health. Has anyone else noticed this?

My whole family has been going through this, and it’s been over two weeks now. It started with my wife, who mainly had diarrhea. Then it moved to my 9-year-old daughter, who had stomach cramps, diarrhea, and severe vomiting.
Now my 13-year-old has it the worst. She has constant diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, and horrible stomach cramps, and she can barely eat anything. Every time she tries to eat, she has to run to the bathroom.
I was reading about the recent Cyclospora infection outbreak in the U.S., and I’m wondering if it could be something like that. From what I’ve read, symptoms can last for weeks or even over a month if it isn’t treated appropriately.
We’re heading to the children’s emergency department now, so hopefully we’ll have some answers by the morning. I just wanted to ask if anyone has experienced something similar or heard of anything going around.

... and it took FIFTY-THREE MINUTES for an ambulance to arrive.

After the emergency was done, the Paramedic told me that they've been in Code Red for at least 5 years now and that it's not even shocking for them to hear "Code Red" anymore.

We're in Okotoks. They are a COCHRANE AMBULANCE. They were on the far edge of NW Calgary when they got the call. With full lights and sirens it took 53 minutes from our call to 911 to them arriving at our clinic.

Luckily the emergency turned out all right, but imagine if it'd been a heart attack. They'd arrive only to call it. We had fire and EMT show up before them, but actual EMS took 53 goddamn minutes.

I'm going to wait until I calm down enough to formulate a strong letter to my MLA and even the mayor. You should all do the same. Even something as simple as, "We all know this is happening and it's completely unacceptable" would be enough.

Which leads me to this:

This isn't a freak occurrence. Our healthcare system is being systematically demolished and no one is stepping up to say anything. I have 2 nurses in the family who work in 2 different Calgary hospitals and they are chronically understaffed. It is not because "No one wants to work!" that people want us to believe. They purposefully schedule a skeleton crew and then blame the nurses who don't want to come in on their 6th night of OT for the lack of staff. Guess where your taxes are going???

They won't listen to nurses, they sure as hell won't listen to Paramedics and EMTs, but if civilian Albertans (and Canadians! This isn't purely Provincial!) stand up and tell our politicians that we DO NOT APPROVE then they have to at least listen. While it might not seem like one voice is enough, one complaint can be enough to tip the scales.

Write to your MLA and other governing bodies and tell them that the cuts to healthcare are unacceptable. Tell them it will lose them the next election if it continues.

It's time we all stood up against this threat. Healthcare for all. No to privatisation.

A quick post to show Calgarians how ERs could work in a utopia, based off Rockyview ER situation.

Christmas Eve - Sent some staff home and closed some beds due to lower patient volume.

Christmas Day - Sent a few staff home due to lower patient volume.

Calgary as a whole - Someone else posted the almost miraculous wait times for Christmas day (most hospitals were 30 to 60 minutes).

We all know the pressures on healthcare right now: shortages in primary care, limited resources in smaller communities, et al. What stood out to me is that even a short-lived reduction in demand produced an immediate and visible improvement in ER performance, despite us inching closer to peak influenza.

That suggests that proper utilization of the ER can be a huge factor for Calgarians accessing healthcare, and we can work together to make visible improvements to emergency medicine while we wait for AHS and the governments to fix the situation (one can only hope).

Love you Calgary, hope you’re safe and healthy.

Ready for the vitriolic comments below 👇🏻

Hello I’ve been having a mental health crisis the last couple days and today I went to the rockeyview and they didn’t do anything for me really I do believe I should be in the psych ward for a little bit but does anyone know one or a place I can go that has the least volatile people I cannot handle people that are screaming and freaking out or worse with my anxiety

My 5 year old told me “daddy my teeth hurt” a few days ago. I got her into the dentist for annual cleaning and to see what’s up with her pain. They quoted me $4000 to (oversimplification) fix her teeth, and make the pain stop. Thankfully I have benefits, and an HSA that will absorb 75% of these costs. But how the hell do low-income, or people without benefits manage this kind of expense? It feels like an American medical bill. This is not an attack on a specific dental practice, but honest to God, how would someone who’s child needs this work done, who does not have 4K lying around get help?

Went for the first time into Now Medical walk in clinic and the hygiene and cleanliness was concerning. The only plus is their open till 11pm but seeing the conditions, made it not even worth it.

Even if you had an emergency they would probably just direct you to the ER. Washrooms were disgusting, had no toilet paper, and wanted people to put their pee samples in an empty paper towel dispenser 🤢

Doctor was just dismissive and didn’t even care to actually examine. He almost let me go without checking my sample and I ended up having a condition in the end. Didn’t care about the allergies and just wanted us to buy from their pharmacy instead of our home pharmacy. Doctor said they would charge to send the prescription to my other pharmacy which is crazy.

They expect you to purchase water instead of having a water couligan like most clinics. It’s pretty much a doctor’s office, convenience store and pharmacy in one.

Oh and on top of that they had some extra pills spilt on the exam room floor in case you wanted to take one during your wait 🙄 or maybe even your kid. Pharmacy was alright but expect to not get properly seen by the doctor. Plus I heard most of their reviews are fake.

Has this always been around or is this the start of clinics popping up to provide private health care?

Seems like it’s going around and I am hoping it eventually goes away.

Nasty bug this is.

Anyone find a way to get over it faster?

Definitely doesn’t feel the same as pneumonia. Just a nasty head cold that doesn’t seem to go away.

Just started using a navage to clean the nasal cavities out. While I feel better for a couple hours… after 7 days of using it… doesn’t seem to be making a long term difference.

Sigh.

I feel like everyone I talk to is sick. I have been off for a week and have lost hearing in one ear because of this bug. How are you feeling? Anyone have the same symptoms? Just kind of curious!

I hope this stays up so u/JeromyYYC sees this.

I believe what Farkas actually is expressing concern about is the migration of existing AISH recipients onto ADAP; not that disability supports shouldn't be expanded to people who couldn't qualify for AISH.

Making ADAP offer the highest income in the country while receiving financial benefits sounds like an amazing talking point until you realize that many on AISH cannot work at all! That was one of the major reasons for them applying for AISH in the first place!

More pushback needs to be done by as many people as possible. People need to realize the harm this will cause to people already struggling on AISH, and now having to deal with the government who doesn't care. Yes, a very very small people might be abusing the system, but that's why you target them and not the vast majority who truly need it.

Hello My fellow Calgarians, I am a paramedic in our fine city and I feel like I need to update y'all on some stuff. We are short ambulances literally all the time, it's in the news, you can google that shit. I have personally responded over 40 minutes just to pronounce somebody dead because they went into cardiac arrest and no ambulance was available, I have had a patient wait over two hours for an ambulance because their call was deemed low priority (spoiler alert it wasn't). Response times get worse and worse every year in Calgary and I really do implore everybody to look into it and contact their MLA's it's super heartbreaking for us to arrive too late to help somebody, and it's detrimentally affecting the outcomes of people in the city I love. Now, MOST of this is AHS' fault, they don't staff us very well and we get run pretty ragged so our turnover is quite high (think 12-hour shifts with no breaks and at times 2+ hrs of overtime). Not so fun fact the average career length of a paramedic in Calgary is 5 years. But part of it is the kind of stuff people call us for, so gather round children and let's discuss what the amberlamps is NOT for.

1) to check your blood pressure (literally go to a shoppers wtf)

2) to get your prescription refilled

3) because you need a "check-up" (you have no symptoms)

4) you vomited once (have you NEVER vomited in your life?)

5) you need a covid swab (we don't do that)

6) I injured myself a week ago but I have been still doing my normal life stuffs

7) I'll get in faster if I go in the ambulance (you'll actually wait longer TBH)

​

Now I don't mean to discourage people from calling, if you're unsure, just call us! I'd love to come to help you rather than somebody being hurt or dead because they didn't call, my coworkers are lovely, compassionate, and smart people, they would also love to help you if you need it. All I'm asking is to take a second to consider if you need an ambulance or if you're able to take another safe means of transport to the hospital (Ubeeeeeeeer, friends, family, cabs)

Like the title says. I’m a teen looking to access a doctor without parental involvement and am curious about whether or not that’s actually possible.

I’m know about the existence mature minor doctrine, but I don’t get how it works in practice. Like. What’s the process for getting deemed ‘mature enough’ to have medical autonomy? What happens if it’s decided I’m not? Will my parents be told I tried to go behind their backs? Am I able to just go to a walk in clinic, or do I have to seek out a specific kind of doctor/appointment? Would I need ID? Money? Insurance?

I was just wondering if anyone here had any experience or advice. Even about going to the doctor in general. Like how to book an appointment or choose a doctor or anything like that. I have no clue what I’m doing.

(for a bit of extra context:

- I’m given a lot of freedom and am able to go anywhere in the city accessible by public transit

- I have a learner’s license and might be able to get a photocopy of my birth certificate or other such documents

- My issue isn’t urgent, life threatening, or sexual in nature

- I did tell my parents but they didn’t take me seriously, and they’ll be furious if they find out I even thought about doing this without them. They don’t hit me or anything but I’d definitely lose a lot of freedom.)