It's not all green pastures.

Case in point, I went to the pain doctor today. 3 hour visit, great visit in fact.

He prescribed me Sativex, which is essentially marijuana in a bottle (spray).

Great right? "Oh don't worry your insurance will cover it".

They don't.

The drug will cost me $500+ out of pocket.

Should I just start growing a plant? (kidding, he did say there were other options to try if it wasn't covered).

Sigh. They don't make things easy for us do they?

I thought Canada had National Insurance. You can buy it more natural and legal (in Canada?) Brownies? Without the smoke risk to the body?

Do you know any brownie bakers?

In a spray bottle? How is it applied, topical or oral?

and how often? How long would a bottle last? $500 - ouch!

The way it works with Medicare in Canada is that most doctor visits/tests are covered by the government (see: taxpayers).

So say I have the flu, I can walk into an after hours clinic, see a doctor, government has just paid that visit.

If I have to then fill a prescription from the doctor, that falls on my individual insurance. In my case, group insurance through my employer. Which... for the majority of things is great, but may be a bit behind the times when it comes to cannabis being legal in Canada for medical use if approved.

Brownies? Yuck!

It's an oral spray yes... they begin you on 4 sprays per day, and you work your way up. Same deal as the plant pretty much, only in a mist.

I wish they'd cover it. Hell, they have no trouble tossing out bucks for oxycontin.

How long do you have to wait in line for the free healthcare?

To see a doctor in a clinic, you don't really. You call, schedule an appointment, they get you in same day.

To see your GP is a bit trickier, but generally they can get you in pretty fast when needed in my experience.

Certain other 'functions' like getting an MRI take longer. Few months on that one. I'm still waiting on mine, and it's because I'm 'low priority' now that I've been diagnosed already.

is it true that there are shortages of GPs? I have seen news stories that while healthcare, or visits to the GP are free, there is such a shortage that its difficult to find a GP to see. One news story said that the GP office holds a raffle in one town. They have been adding ONE new patient per month, by raffle. They spoke of how crowded the practice is since so many MDs want to be specialists.

We have the same issue here in NH. We have so many specialists, but not enough internal medicine, or general practice MDs. For a while when I first moved to this area, it was hard to get an appointment. To see a GP you would have to wait, and then when you got here, it was a long wait in the lounge before you got in. its better now, as they have concentrated on adding more GPs, but its still not what it could be. There is ONE single MD for this entire town of 6k people. Yes, they can go to another town, or to the hospital proper for an MD, but its still too many for one man.

Yup, that's pretty much it Dej, but I'm not sure about the raffles here. At least not in NB. There's a shortage. Bless those doctors who don't have their own practice that do the hospital AND after hours clinics.

Being an MD aint what it used to be. It used to be you could hang out a shingle, and just take care of the locals. Now you have mountains of paperwork, office staff to worry about, regulations to meet, and requirements and standards of care to be met for each patient. you get pennies on the dollar for the care you provide, and more time is spent badgering insurance companies to care for their patients, then taking care of the patients themselves.

Most practices around here are not accepting new patients. Even after older patients die off, there is no room for new ones because the hosptials they are affiliated with forced them to open the doors to more patients than they could handle. So many places you sit for an hour in the waiting room, and then an hour in the exam room before an MD finally comes in to give you 3 minutes.

Im not sure I could do that job. too many folks telling you how to run your business, and too much paperwork.