Imagine that.

"FreedomWorks board member Richard J. Stephenson has spent much of his career in the health care industry. Not only is he the founder of the Cancer Centers of America but he was also the president of International Capital & Management Co., an organization specializing in making hospitals more efficient and cost-effective..."

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/200908050002

Just another deceiving, money grubbing scam. And they prey on the most vulnerable segment of society, those who are grievously sick.

Shut them down!! Now!!!

It reminds me of the term GOMER, which I remember from either a book or TV show. It meant "Get Out Of My Emergency Room." Said to people likely to die soon, it was a way to have fewer deaths in the ER. Often it involved shuttling patients to regular hospital rooms to die there, rather than in the ER.

I wish I remember where that came from. I think I'll Google it and report back.

Back from Google: It originated in a 1978 novel, "House of God," by Samuel Shem. I was wrong about the definition, though. It referred to old, sick people who essentially were no longer present as people, as in terminal Alzheimers. It wasn't about them getting ready to die there.

I have been cancer free for 14 years. I had breast cancer and 6 positive lymph nodes when I was 43. I don't think I am supposed to still be here. I was on a clinical trial. I think the reason why I am still here has a lot to do with the type of cancer I had. Estrogen positive, so you just have to get rid of the estrogen and the cancer cells quit growing, I think the number of cells that were estrogen positive was over 90%. I was treated here in Wichita. You know to get good numbers all you have to do is turn away the challenging patients. When you get diagnosed it is very scary. You will do anything, believe anything to try to be positive. That puts you in a very vulnerable position. I have long suspected the people at those centers take advantage of that. I still feel fine, and I run a small estate sale business. I have insurance under my husband, sooner or later he will want to retire and I will have to buy my own. That scares me as much as the diagnosis did.

Our son was diagnosed at almost 25 years old with GlioBlastma Multiforme brain tumor. He had his first seizures Apr 17, 1998. He had his brain surgery after 1 CT scan and 2 MRIs 3 days later. After surgery we were told it looked like he had a GBM and the chances of his living past 2 years were 5 percent. He had the same brain tumor as Ted Kennedy and it seems they had the same treatments.

He went to Sunny Brook Cancer Centre in Toronto. His neurosurgeon was the head of the neurology dept in the University Department as well as the chief surgeon in St Michaels.

My husband was diagnosed to have Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma 3 months later. He had surgery which confirmed and then was told by September when he saw the head hematologist in Sunny brook that he had a 1 in 3 chance of getting cured.

The Cancer center was wonderful..Reading the article I was reminded what Sunny brook had to offer us in their Wellspring section of the Centre.
the article said
But because we see mostly patients with later-stage, complex cancers, they often need something else," he added - psychological and spiritual support as well as "holistic" interventions such as yoga, acupuncture and reiki, a laying-on of hands.

We all got that, the whole family, my husband, son, his fiancee, our older son and myself.
My son was in intensive care for 5 weeks after his 3rd operation in St Michaels' and then 1 week in their palliative care. My husband had 3 months of palliative care in sunnybrook May 21, 2001. Our medical bills were ZERO dollars, except for the parking and TV costs.

I feel my son and husband did get the best treatment. We did our research and did not feel we would find better treatment anywhere. I was on the Virtual Trials Brain Tumor Support website...which is an American based excellent website. I got to know all the American hospitals and cancer centres....We believed that our Toronto Cancer Centre did provide for all our needs excellently.
I am thankful we live under a one payer Canadian health system.

...but did your son and husband survive?

They got palliative care in the last days....My son lasted 18 months and my husband died 18 months after our son..

I did want to point out that we were told on the onset what their chances are. and that we had the confidence that our health care system was doing it its best and giving them the full treatment with no denials. They went through numerous operations, radiation, chemos (several kinds) my husband had a stemcell transplant harvesting of his cells for a month long in hospital chemo.

We did research ourselves on the internet...We knew all the treatments available world wide. We got the best and anythinig we needed. we were not denied anything.

Canadians can not understand how America is not willing to provide this same type of health care to ALL of its people.

It is such a shame.

I looked up what palliative care was, but the definition made it seem like it was something that could be used at any stage of a disease to relieve pain, so I thought that meant that maybe they survived and just had to use that sort of care to get through their treatment I'm sad they were not able to pull through. Thank you for answering. Take care.

Also I want emphasize that there are no costs for us like in America. We All have health care, good health care, equal to all.

TYY

Stephenson - he built that.