A little story about the Canadian Healthcare System

One evening I had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop. After an hour I called 911 and they brought me to an ER.

I explained that I would like to see an ENT so that they could cauterize the blood vessel and be done with it - in 5 minutes.

They told me: NO.

They took blood and figured that all looked good. (Which I told them earlier that I was not a bleeder and not on blood thinners.)

First they put a clip on my nose. 2 hours later, after I had almost drowned in my own blood, they shoved a rhino block into my nose. 3 hours later I was still bleeding. I mentioned the ENT again and guess what - I was ignored. They put me on a drip that helped a little. They removed the rhino blocks again and packed my left nostril. Then they told me the ENT will see me in the morning. So 6 hours after I was brought to the ER they put me in an acute room for the rest of the night. In the morning I was discharged without being seen by an ENT and I was told to come back 2 days later to get the packing removed.

An ENT called me a few hours later and told me he would like to see me and get a CT done, but his office was closed and the hosptal didn't do CTs for non-emergency cases.

Well, why did that dude call me in the first place? Useless info and not assessing my nose is just as great as not calling me at all. (I guess the pandemic is always a good excuse to let people just die. Do you want to know the stats on how many people died, because hospitals stopped any type of surgery? All that for less than 300,000 people dead worldwide - economies ruined for decades to come. But that's another story.)

A little over 24 hours later it started to bleed again and the ambulance brought me back to the ER. They removed the packing and started again with all the useless doctoring while my plea for an ENT was ignored once again. 11 hours later I was discharged with 2 rhino blocks in my nose. Shortly after I turned back and told them that one might be loose. 3 hours later a doc came by and inflated those things so much that I had pain for about 10 hours before my nose was numb and so swollen that nothing else mattered.

2 days later I went to the ER to get them removed. Guess what? As soon as they removed the blocks, it started to bleed again. Here we go again - blood work, nose blocks, drip and finally..... a call to an ENT. 4 hours later an ENT showed up.

I told her that I might need cauterizing in my left nostril. My nose was so swollen from the 6 days of different things shoved into my nose that every touch hurt like crazy. I asked her if she could just numb it down with an anesthetic. Luckily she was ok with that, checked both nostrils and 1 minute later she told me she'd fix it. Less than 4 minutes later the wound was cauterized and no more bleeding since then.

I am really wondering why we as Canadians are so proud of our health care system. It's a joke. All it would have taken was 5 minutes with an ENT, yet they tortured me for 6 days with me constantly worrying that I'd drown in my own blood in my sleep.

I would have rather paid 5 minutes of an ENT's time than spending 6 days in agony, 2 rides to the ER with an ambulance, and 37 hours in the hospital.

A few things to point out and consider:

• If there had been anything seriously wrong with me, I probably would have died.
• I was never given a Covid-19 test, even though I was 3 times in the ER and about 37 hours in the hospital.
• If our health care system can't even handle such a simple thing, how do we think Canada can deal with a medical crisis, like Covid-19?
• A myriad of resources were wasted to deal with my problem (over a span of 6.5 days), instead of just 5 minutes of an ENT's time.