Why I hate private health care.
I hate private health care with every fibre of my being!
I had just turned six and we had been forced off a good farm and onto a poor one. Mum and Dad had no help moving, they had to do all the heavy lifting themselves.
After we moved, Mum hemorrhaged until she was too weak to get out of bed. This was the dirty ’30s. No money for the doctor, hospital or surgery she needed. Finally Mum realized if she didn’t do something she was going to die. She asked her brothers for the money, which came immediately. By this time she was too weak to sit up in the car while a neighbour drove her to the hospital. She needed blood transfusions and it wasn’t free! The call went out for blood and so many people came to donate blood, free.
The day of her surgery I remember driving over the railroad tracks (topless Model T) and the stars were shining. Two girls at school were crying, they said my Mum was going to die!
She lived, and came home three months later.
If Mum had died, we would have lost a wonderful mother and the farm. It was a struggle to keep the farm with all of us, especially Mum and Dad working so hard. If we had lost the farm, there was no welfare! Dad would have been forced to give the three of us up. We would all have been separated.
Tommy Douglas had not yet brought in public health care. We were told he was a “dirty communist.” How could that be? Communism destroys people!
And that is why I hate private health care!
Hazel McBride
Red Deer