The Mayo Clinic
I spent the past two weeks with J at The Mayo Clinic in Florida, getting a second set of eyes on her condition. Having spent much of the last year in Canadian hospitals, it was an interesting contrast. Here is a brain-dump of observations:
- Obviously when Canadians go to the US for medical care they have to pay. I was expecting that, but I wasn't expecting to be given zero credit. Each morning we had to go to the financial services office where they would estimate what the day was going to cost and demand payment.
- That said, prices were not as extreme as I had feared. An hour with a specialist runs about $600. That's probably on par with what I'd pay a Canadian dentist.
- Our doctor flatly did not believe that medicine in Canada is free. "But you must have had co-pays?"
- When you walk into the International Services office they greet you in Spanish, and are then confused when you cannot reply in kind.
- Canadian hospitals are worn and grubby. The carpets have holes patched with duct tape. The switch to open the ER doors at the Toronto Western Hospital has been broken for at least the past 3 years, and nobody seems to have the time or money to fix it. By contrast, the Mayo was spotless with comfy chairs in the waiting rooms.
- In Canada if you get a specialist appointment far in the future there's not much to be done but wait for it. At the Mayo you can go "standby", just as you would standby for an airplane. You camp out in the doctor's waiting room, and if a scheduled patient doesn't show up then you get the appointment slot.
- There are very few visibly sick people at the Mayo. The haemotology waiting rooms do have folks who look like they are undergoing chemo, and there are a very few people in wheelchairs, but that's it. The atriums of Canadian hospitals are filled with gown-clad people shuffling around with IV poles.
- After a Mayo blood draw you get several meters of gauze wrapped around your elbow. In Canada you get a cotton ball and a short length of sticky tape.
- The Mayo tries very hard to make you comfortable, and possibly goes too far. J had a nuclear medicine procedure which was done in street clothes. Then they spent a while looking at the images trying to understand if they were seeing an artifact from a zipper. Pretty much everything in Canada happens in a hospital gown.
- Ultimately, the quality of medical care appears equivalent between the two.