Why I started HealthFrontiers.ca

In my pre-teen years, I was a frequent flyer in my local Emergency rooms. It was common for me to end up with an injury or short-term illness that required medical support. As my mother would tell you, I had a particular affinity for conditions that required me to get IV meds. I didn't mind being in the ER all that much. It was a chance for me to peer into the world of clinical medicine. Something about the high-tech machines and synergy among the clinical staff intrigued me.

I grew up moving from city to city before settling down in Greater Vancouver for high school and University. In the preceding years, I lived in Dallas and New Delhi. This kind of movement allowed me to see firsthand how different countries provided healthcare to their citizens. My family and I were, fortunately, covered by my father's medical insurance. That changed when we moved to Canada. As residents, we enrolled in the BC MSP program. I had heard a great deal about the Canadian public insurance program and believed that quality care was accessible to all in a timely manner under the Canadian Health Act. As many Canadians will tell you, the reality of Canadian Healthcare is far from this utopian ideal.

At the age of 15, I developed an immune disorder. In the midst of a severe immune reaction, I visited a local ER. Following a 3-hour-wait I was finally seen by an ER physician. In under 5 minutes, he diagnosed me with an allergic reaction, prescribed high-dose anti-histamines, and sent me home with an Epi-Pen. I spent the next week trying to get a hold of my Family physician. When I finally got a requisition for an allergy test, the earliest available appointment was over a month away. I spent weeks in anti-histamine-fueled drowsiness. Fortunately, my immunology tests showed that I had a dust-mite allergy that could be treated by symptom control using low-dose and regular medication. I'm now fully recovered.

My story however is all too familiar to my friends and neighbors. Long painful wait times have plagued the healthcare system for far too long. Ever since the pandemic, wait times have skyrocketed. The pandemic caused an unprecedented strain on the healthcare system. Over 3000 elective surgical procedures were canceled between March and May 2020. This created a backlog that is yet to be resolved.

This backlog means that patients seeking care have to wait months, often in terrible physical and mental pain. Take hernias for example. A hernia is a tear in the muscular wall of the abdomen. A terribly painful condition that can be effectively treated by surgery with little to no long-term effects. As I write this article, it takes nearly 40 weeks for most surgical cases to be treated with only 50% of cases being treated within 12 weeks. These absurd wait times are not acceptable. Such wait times can leave people in debilitating pain further fuelling the opioid epidemic, increasing the severity of disease, turning otherwise treatable ailments into terminal cases.

I know that Canadian healthcare can do better. I believe that in one of the richest nations on earth due care and process should be right available to all rather than a privilege to those lucky enough to pass the barriers to care. With Health Frontiers Canada I hope to form a coalition of people inspired to change Canadian Healthcare. Together, we can be heard by those who are in positions of power. Those elected by us must respond to this healthcare crisis before any more people have to needlessly suffer. The system as we know it is buckling under pressure. More physicians, nurses, infrastructure, and funding is needed to redeem Canadian Healthcare. With collective will and a slight adjustment in our priorities, I know that we can fix these issues. Join us on this journey to heal healthcare itself.