I'm not a young man any more and for me life contains only a few chances left to be happy! Watching our Montreal Canadians Hockey team win a semi-final Stanley cup game was one monumental moment of happiness multiplied by extreme emotion which made me feel good but it also made me think...what about the future where I will be (if I make it) a very old man? Will I continue being happy watching Hockey?
What if unfettered Capitalism pollutes and destroys both the natural environment and our Canadian social structures and nobody gives a damn! Will I and millions of aged and poor pensioners live with dignity or die in degradation? A few days ago a solitary Eighty year old gentleman approached me with that kind of a serious problem.
  He was bleeding profusely from an accidental cut on his arm and he needed help. I rushed him to the hospital in St. Eustache, Quebec, where a nurse quickly bandaged his arm and then left us in the waiting room to wait for a Doctor. We waited patiently for hours before the elderly gentleman finally gave up and said " I want to go home."  I tried to convince him to remain but he was adamant.

"I want to leave." He said preferring the risk of bleeding to death than waiting more hours in the St. Eustach waiting room! If this was only one solitary example I would not be writing this article but last year it became personal when I was forced to wait seven hours in the same St. Eustache hospital waiting room, with a serious ear infection. My head felt like it was going to explode and after repeated quick checks by emergency room staff to see if I was not dying or contageous, I finally was sent to meet a young Doctor who told me there was no medicinal ear drops anywhere in the hospital and there was only two Doctors in the building. They sent me home late that night with cotton in my ear and a prescription for ear drops.  After suffering all night I finally rushed to the corner pharmacy the next morning and bought the much needed drops. The pharmacist explained to me what I had to do to relieve my own pain. It only took fifteen minutes.
What if I had contracted something more serious or even deadly?  

  My questions today for our so-called Canadian federal and provincial leaders are where are all the Doctors who are supposed to be in our Hospitals and what is happening to our Medicare system? Has Canada's Medicare system been quietly usurped by private clinics and American style insurance companies? Are most of Canada's Doctors today sitting in small private clinics waiting for people who have expensive private health insurance plans or enough private funds to pay for their own health care? How about all the poor people Medicare was set up to protect here in this country? What is happening to the Tax money we continue to pay for our Canadian Medicare system?

   The United States is finally creeping towards a decent Medicare social program but why is Canada going in the opposite direction? Why are we heading back towards privately funded medicine? Will only those who can afford to pay receive the best care?  If that is true than France and England and even Communist Cuba  are beginning to look more attractive to me than Canada. Each of those countries have socialized medicine and they care for their elders.

  Canada has been slowly changing towards extreme Capitalism. We continue to be an Oil producing and polluting haven for large companies bent on profit. An environment destroying philosophy which is destroying both our natural habitats and our social programs and our federal and provincial governments are encouraging the process!

  Am I the only person who thinks like this? No...remember the movie Patch Adams created in 1998 with the actor Robin Williams? The real Dr. Hunter Adams wanted to build a community hospital in Virginia based on compassion and free for his patients. Today he continues to struggle to build his hospital because the movie producers, even though they grossed millions of Dollars, did not care enough to help him build his hospital. They placed profit before compassion. Dr. Adams questions the ideals of many of today's doctors and medical establishments because they continue to place money and profit before compassion. I and millions like me must now face a very uncertain old age with young money-starved people waiting around every corner. We will be facing the horrific problem of hospital waiting rooms filled to capacity where our elderly and poor and desperate will be waiting for help that never arrives!