I am not an expert in broken healthcare systems, but I am one of its victims.

The energy-efficient light bulb in my bathroom has begun to flicker, fade and hum. It casts more shadow than light. Hotel rooms behind the Eastern Curtain in the 1980s were once lit like that- a fluorescent Soviet noir hue.

Soon enough, I will change that bulb. But for now, I must wait because I am saving up to buy a pneumonia vaccine prescribed by a Respirologist. It's a must-have for people with dodgy lungs like me during an age of airborne plagues. The problem is - I have become the dreaded one in five who can't afford prescription drugs in Canada. To paraphrase Tears for Fears, I find it- kind of funny, and I find it- kind of- sad that in Canada, should I get pneumonia that requires ICU care costing tens of thousands of dollars, the state will pay for it. Yet they won't pay for the medicine that is $200 and can prevent pneumonia from becoming a life-threatening condition for older or more vulnerable people.

Fortunately, in Canada, should I become so incapacitated after a stay in the ICU that prevents me from taking care of myself, I can opt for assisted suicide, which is free.

The state is willing to pay for the doctor and the drugs to kill citizens if the slings and arrows of declining health along with poverty make that burden too great for them. It just won't pay for the drugs for its citizens that maintain- a good quality of life to prevent the need for that suicide by the state to occur.

I am not an expert in broken healthcare systems, but I am one of its victims. Since a heart attack in 2006, I have been under the care of a cardiologist. But he took ill during Covid and retired. It took me almost two years to find another cardiologist- able to conduct my yearly stress test to ensure my heart functions as it should.

My CT scanning in February for cancer reoccurrence owing to a rectal carcinoma treated in March 2020 detected fibrosis in my lungs, warranting a referral to a specialist. My city once had a respirology clinic and treated my father in his last year of life. It closed during the worst of COVID-19 when the physician in charge of it burned out from all the people needing to be seen by her because their lungs had not read the memo circulated by the right-wing that the pandemic was simply a cold. So, I must travel to a city east of me for my lung function tests which will be done in a private clinic. But CT scans to track the progress of the scarring in my lungs must be done in a city west of me because the healthcare system is overwhelmed, and the wait list for tests and diagnostic evaluations stretches forever more, like the horizon on the prairies. You go where the earliest appointment is available for you. If you can't afford to travel that distance, your illness gets worse as you wait for something closer to home.

I don't have a GP in my city because you can't beg, borrow or steal one. His surgery is in another county that is an hour away by car, something I no longer own.

Instead, I do telemedicine with him because there are few inter-city buses and efficient train travel, either affordable or unaffordable is not available. But, to the almost 7 million Canadians who don't have a family doctor, I am one of the lucky ones.

That number of shit out of luck Canadians lacking proper healthcare won't diminish any time soon because we can't make or import doctors and nurses as fast as the country's population ages or increases through immigration, which the 1% need to work their neoliberal economy.

My gut tells me this is all deliberate to hasten public health care's demise. The 1% don't want liberal democracy they want unlimited wealth and unfettered power. When healthcare becomes conditional on the insurance you receive from your employer, as in the USA; you are a 21st-century serf. You aren't tied to the land as if it was the 13th century instead your are harnessed to the corporation that ensures you can afford cancer treatment for yourself, a partner or your child, It's a yoke of servitude that any peasant from the middle ages would recognise.

Democracy in the 21st century flickers and fades because we march into the darkness at the behest of the 1%. The anger I see, and the despair I witness in the lower decks of society, where I exist, foretell not a renaissance for socialism but a reawakening for fascism as evil as the Nazis.

As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts because I really need your help this month. August is a bad month with prescriptions that need to be filled and treatments and tests that occur in cities that I must commute to. . Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Even sharing my posts helps the cause. Take Care, John

Photo by V T on Unsplash