John Bolton - Like everything else in CANADA - Healthcare IS BROKEN (a rant)

00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John and welcome to the channel 445 a.m. Friday, August the 22nd with the Big Blue

00:00:10.720 Mug of Coffee. Hope you're having a great day today, a day away from the weekend. Hope

00:00:15.640 you've got nice plans for the weekend. I want to do something different today. You know,

00:00:19.760 I could talk about the normal stuff. It's like we finally made it to the dog days of

00:00:25.360 summer. Now that the Polyev by-election is over, we can kind of settle down for maybe

00:00:30.320 a couple of weeks before government finally starts to sit once again. It has hardly sat

00:00:34.840 for the whole year. Media is picking on Pierre Polyev. They're paid for by the liberals.

00:00:40.880 It's what you expect. Carney can't get a deal with Donald Trump. The people who support Mark

00:00:46.580 Carney still support their mediocre country and a mediocre government. But let's not get

00:00:51.220 into that. I want to talk about our health care system because I just went through it.

00:00:55.360 Now, I want to speak about our health care system from somebody who was in it recently.

00:01:02.520 Now, for those of you who are new here, who don't know my situation, a couple of Saturdays

00:01:07.540 ago, I'm riding my bike. A dog runs in front of my bike. I fly into the pavement. I broke

00:01:11.780 my left collarbone and I broke my pelvis in two places. So, I can speak about our health care

00:01:17.420 system from somebody who wasn't in a life-threatening situation, but somebody who's pretty beat up.

00:01:22.600 Now, you may say, John, you look just fine. Well, actually, I feel fine, but I'm not fine.

00:01:27.200 That's why I ended up back in the hospital on Monday. I may come around to that once again

00:01:30.840 in this video. But there's something terribly wrong with our health care system, and most

00:01:34.900 Canadians know it. But because Canada is a mediocre country, we accept a mediocre health

00:01:40.300 care system. Now, this is not an indictment of the people who work in our health care system.

00:01:45.100 They are all caring professionals and do a wonderful job. You get good care once you get

00:01:52.140 into the system. It's what you would expect in a first world country from a health care

00:01:57.620 system. It's not like picking a mechanic. You can end up with a bad one. You should get

00:02:03.280 good health care once you get into the system. These people are great. I admire them. I thank

00:02:09.440 them for helping me. But the health care system in Canada is sacrosanct. It's beyond

00:02:14.560 criticism, folks. And that's why it never gets any better. Now, am I an expert on health

00:02:20.640 care in this country? No, I don't understand how it works. But from what I saw, it doesn't

00:02:25.960 work as efficiently as it should. I mean, it's like me trying to critique restaurants. I know

00:02:33.220 nothing about restaurants. I've never worked in a restaurant. I'm amazed that I get my meal

00:02:39.140 at a restaurant. I don't know how it gets there. But I know when I get bad service.

00:02:43.140 Okay? Now, the service I got in the hospital wasn't because of the people. It's because

00:02:49.800 of what I thought was inefficiencies. So let me just run you through what I learned from

00:02:57.000 being in that accident a couple of weekends ago. I'm laying on a bike path and I'm waiting

00:03:00.880 for EMS to show up. And a lot of what I'm talking about here deals with the people who are

00:03:06.280 on the front line. These are the people that you are happiest to see if you're in a bad

00:03:13.620 situation. You're happy to see a doctor, but that's the person you see when you're in the

00:03:18.700 hospital, when you feel you're safe.

00:03:20.660 I'm laying on the bike path for about 45 minutes, which under the circumstances was really

00:03:25.760 fast. I'm on a bike path and they had to walk with a gurney down a bike path from a parking

00:03:30.420 area to get to me. And they get me into the ambulance and I'm diverted to a place called

00:03:35.280 urgent care, which isn't really a hospital, which is halfway across the city. So we have to drive

00:03:39.500 halfway across the city. And I'm talking to these EMS people as I'm going there. They suggested I

00:03:44.400 needed to go to a hospital, but there's too many people lined up at the hospitals right now. Send

00:03:48.160 them to urgent care. They get me into a wheelchair with excruciating pain, which causes me to pass out

00:03:53.140 for more than a minute. Finally get me into a hospital bed where I see a doctor for a minute

00:03:57.300 who suggests I shouldn't be at urgent care. I need to be in a hospital because I probably have a

00:04:02.460 broken pelvis. Well done doctor without any scans or anything. You nailed it. I have a broken pelvis

00:04:07.120 in two different places. So then I ended up getting to the hospital. And as I'm getting there, I asked

00:04:13.320 them, so when do you go out to your next call? Well, they said, well, they have to wait with me at the

00:04:17.660 hospital. I said, why are you waiting with me at the hospital? Well, because the EMS services here in

00:04:22.780 Alberta are under the same umbrella as AHS, Alberta Health Services. They're separate in most provinces,

00:04:29.060 but they're under the same umbrella here. They have to stay with me until I'm officially handed

00:04:34.500 over to the hospital, which could take hours. And in some cases, you have people who are driving

00:04:39.180 ambulances standing in hallways at hospitals here in Calgary all day. And the people that picked me up

00:04:47.260 off the bike path were with me for two and a half hours, not doing their primary jobs.

00:04:53.120 And you know what's fascinating about this? My discussion about EMS here is that this is sort

00:04:59.460 of what I heard on two ambulance rides, because I took two, was that they're very critical of the

00:05:05.460 system like I'm critical of the system. They believe that there's too much administration.

00:05:11.960 They said that there's too much administration. And I said to them, administration doesn't want to see

00:05:17.700 any efficiencies in the system because if you find efficiencies, you don't need as much

00:05:21.660 administration. And they looked at me and said, you're absolutely right. You have fewer frontline

00:05:26.040 people in healthcare in Alberta because there's too many paper pushers. Now, don't get me wrong.

00:05:31.000 I'm not critical of everybody in administration. They're needed, but we probably have way too many

00:05:36.480 here. They're also very much in favor of more private care here, which I found to be fascinating.

00:05:41.940 These are people in the healthcare system who think we should have more private care.

00:05:45.800 And the way it was explained to me by one of these EMS employees was that if you have more private

00:05:55.440 care, it makes the lines shorter when you get into public care, which is absolutely true. And the

00:06:01.100 argument of people on the left and on the people who continue to support and defend our mediocre

00:06:07.680 healthcare system in this country is that if you have more private care, rich people get moved to the

00:06:12.960 front of the line. And what people need to understand is that rich people can move to the

00:06:16.420 front of the line anyway, because they can go anywhere to get their healthcare because they're

00:06:21.720 rich. All right. What those people going to the private healthcare clinics are really doing is

00:06:30.900 they're moving out of the line so you can move up faster in the public system. And the people on the

00:06:36.180 front line understand this. They should be talking to these people. I heard that we have about eight

00:06:44.760 ambulances in the whole city of Calgary of 1.2 million people on a Saturday afternoon. I was told

00:06:50.520 that after my second, while I was on my second ambulance ride, that I could have waited for four or five

00:06:58.420 hours. If there was something really critical happening in the city, they call it a code red, I could wait

00:07:04.220 four or five hours laying on the floor in my living room. Now I understand that people who are in life

00:07:11.940 threatening situations need to be cared for first, but it just doesn't seem right that we might have

00:07:15.900 six. They said six to eight ambulances for the whole city on the middle of a Saturday afternoon. That's

00:07:21.180 quite remarkable. I also found that these people make an average of about $70,000 a year. Now these

00:07:26.780 people see patients at their absolute worst, life and death situations where everything that they do

00:07:35.660 on the front line could mean life or death. And they get paid about $70,000 a year. And I just don't

00:07:43.000 think that's right. Less administration would mean these people got paid more money. And I'm sending out

00:07:47.240 my thumbs up to paying the EMS people in Calgary and in Alberta more money because they're great people

00:07:53.080 and they're doing good work. Now I get to the hospital the first time. And here's the thing,

00:07:58.380 there's just not enough space in our hospitals. And everybody knows this. If you waited in a waiting

00:08:02.640 room in an emergency in Alberta, and you probably have, you know, you wait for hours. They have signs

00:08:07.900 up telling you you could wait 10 hours just to get in to see a doctor. But once I got into the hospital,

00:08:13.620 because I'm not in life threatening situation, but I'm pretty broken up. I ended up in emergency in a room

00:08:19.160 with 15 other people. And it's absolute chaos. And I admire the people and don't envy the hospital staff

00:08:26.980 who have to deal with this. You don't get any sleep. You don't have hardly any privacy when you're in this

00:08:32.400 room. And you hear people begging to get to the next room where you can actually start getting the care you

00:08:38.980 need to start getting better. I waited for more than a day just to move into a room to start to get the care I

00:08:45.020 needed. So I could start to get better. And once you get into that room, you have 24 hour care and

00:08:50.080 these people are wonderful. And they do great work. I mean, imagine, imagine working at a job when part

00:08:57.300 of what you do is picking up bottles of piss or cleaning out bedpans because somebody like myself

00:09:02.480 can't get to the toilet. This is what these people are doing, as well as giving you all the other things

00:09:08.060 you need to get better. So you get great care once you get to the next phase, but it's all this other

00:09:13.920 stuff that seems to get into the way. Now, the second time I went to the hospital, this is where

00:09:18.680 things start to get interesting. So on Monday, I'm feeling fine. If you were to ask me on Monday how

00:09:25.100 I felt, I feel fine. I'm laying in bed. I feel just fine. So you get this false sense of security.

00:09:31.860 So I go to get out of bed. I get up the wrong way. I twist the wrong way. I'm in excruciating pain. My wife

00:09:36.520 comes running down and eventually I end up falling face first into the floor. And my wife is concerned that

00:09:42.480 I've done some more damage because I landed on my left shoulder, which is broken. And I've got a

00:09:46.580 broken pelvis. Have I done more damage? Go back to the hospital. I get on another ambulance ride.

00:09:51.140 By the way, if you have to take an ambulance ride here in Alberta, I'm not sure what it's like in

00:09:55.440 Ontario. I think it's the same thing. It's not covered by your healthcare, but you pay out of

00:10:00.980 your taxes. It's about $395 for each ambulance ride. I've taken two. Now, luckily, that's covered

00:10:08.520 under my wife's healthcare at work. But if you don't have healthcare at work, you're out $400 1.00

00:10:13.080 for an ambulance ride. Okay. So anyway, I have to go back to the hospital, which is way up in the

00:10:21.080 northwest because there's the least line up there. And I wait around for 12 hours just to get a couple

00:10:26.640 of pictures taken. Now, this is where I find it to be terribly inefficient as well. While I want to go

00:10:31.740 to the hospital, do I have to wait 12 hours to get into diagnostic imaging? I know what the sign

00:10:37.720 says outside the room because I visited it a lot over the last couple of weeks. Because every time I

00:10:42.840 went to diagnostic imaging, there was hardly anybody there. Now, I understand. And from what I can

00:10:49.260 understand about the way it works, there's maybe a doctor or two that are seeing all these patients.

00:10:53.800 And they eventually come around to you after they see everybody because that can take hours.

00:10:59.200 So you wait hours to see a doctor who finally says you can go to diagnostic imaging to get CAT scans

00:11:04.060 and x-rays on my shoulder to see if I've done any more damage. Then it takes hours for them to look

00:11:08.660 at them. Then it takes hours for them to actually give you a diagnosis. And then hours for you actually

00:11:13.860 to get home. I'm wondering why there's not a lineup for people who need pictures taken.

00:11:18.940 Just get it done and have somebody just looking at those pictures so you can get people in and out of

00:11:24.340 the hospital quickly. I remember talking to a guy. Now, it's not exactly the same thing. But I

00:11:29.080 remember talking to a friend of mine who owned a couple of Tim Hortons restaurants. And I said,

00:11:32.940 why don't you have a lineup just for coffee? Because I always get behind all the people who have

00:11:37.280 to order all of these different sandwiches which need to be double toasted or the person who's taking

00:11:42.060 20 minutes just to pick out 12 donuts. If you had a lineup for coffee, I could get in and out in five

00:11:47.440 minutes. Why not the same for somebody like myself on Monday who just needed a couple of pictures

00:11:52.440 taken? It could have taken an hour or maybe two and I'd been gone instead of waiting all day long.

00:12:00.760 It just seems like a lot of time spent being shuffled around in a hospital and not accomplishing

00:12:05.580 anything at all. My wife, you've probably been there. I talked about emergency rooms.

00:12:09.620 I had to see a doctor. I went to an emergency room. After waiting two and a half hours,

00:12:14.640 she told me to go home. Within 15 minutes of me going home,

00:12:17.780 she told me that the lineup at the hospital was 10 hours long.

00:12:22.280 And I don't understand how that can be possible.

00:12:26.520 Again, once you get into the system, it works just fine.

00:12:29.740 But it just takes so long to get everything done.

00:12:31.940 And nobody really wants to address the actual problems that we have.

00:12:40.600 And this has been my experience over the last couple of weeks.

00:12:44.500 I'm at home. I'm happy. I'm getting the care I need. I'm lucky enough in this province to actually

00:12:49.760 have a family doctor, which I never had in Ontario because in Ontario, it was impossible.

00:12:56.520 There was nobody. If we spent less time defending a system that's not working at its peak and spent

00:13:04.320 more time actually talking to the people on the front lines who are doing the work,

00:13:07.880 I think we could make our healthcare system a lot better in this country.

00:13:11.800 That's my rant. Let me know what you think. Let me know what kind of experiences you've had

00:13:16.740 with the healthcare system here in Canada, here in Alberta. But it's a mediocre system.

00:13:21.600 Good people working in an inefficient system. We could save a lot of money, a lot of time,

00:13:27.540 and make the care even better in this country if we would just rethink things. Anybody who tries to

00:13:33.960 is shouted down as somebody who wants to have private care. And I'm perfectly fine with that.

00:13:40.760 Best care I ever had was a private clinic. I got examined, x-rayed. The doctor looked at the x-rayed

00:13:47.640 and treated in an hour and a half. An hour and a half. And when I was scheduled to see the doctor,

00:13:55.120 that's exactly when I got to see the doctor. Best care I ever had. I paid $60 out of pocket. The rest

00:14:01.320 of it was covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. Best care I ever had. We can do better.

00:14:07.860 Thanks for watching. Bit of a rant today. Hope you have a great day. Let me know what you think

00:14:12.920 in the comments. If you like the video, give me a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. Ring the bell

00:14:16.980 for notifications. I'll see you in the next one.

John Bolton - August 22, 2025

Like everything else in CANADA - Healthcare IS BROKEN (a rant)

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