No parrallel fake universal care like the NHS. Some provinces have programs so that all docs, pharmacies, ER etc. can see your medical dossier for the last 4 years in mine. But when they introduced it, I took a look at the website, and there was a form, that they really did not advertise, to not be part of it. They called me back twice to try to change my mind, I told them no, it's my privacy and a pharmacy doesn't have to see that I have or had scripts elsewhere in the last 4 years, I'm not a baby, I'm a grown man.
3 provinces out of 10 and I had to be in one who tried to get this kind of thing. I fucked those bitches hard. Last time I went to see my GP, he renewed my Bromazepam 6mgx2 script, but since he knows I'm on the government insurance (which is your only choice, I work for a company outside the country and at home, so that's 2 things that make it impossible for me to get a health plan. My mom who's a functionary has a kickass private insurance and it's from her credit union too. So she does not need to be part of the DSQ. My doc has a small printing machine for his scripts and strangely, he never did so with me in the past, wrote in [DSQ] at the end of the script, to try to I don't know, catch me not going to the pharmacy where I usually go to, I've always used 2, but when I had to go on methadone, only another one had the methadone program (the liquid mixed with the orange juice) Metadol brand methadone, same name as the pills which they stupidly refuse to script us, they go up to 25mg, then there's the 10,5 and 1mg, but those are for pain only. I've had a 25mg methadone pill when I was a chipper and it floored me so bad, its a good thing I had nothing else in me. But I digress, when I go to the other closer to home pharmacy, the female pharmacist (female pharmacist are the worst, major ego-power trippers) doesn't say a word to me and plays around her computer and then i start talking to her and after a while I told her, I noticed this DSQ thing on the script, is that the issue? She said yes, I told her, I'm not part of the program, I took myself out of it before it came into place and I filed a form the government offered on the ministry of health website and she was almost mad that I did so, but she said "that's why then, okay I'm preparing your script". I told her it's not even the script sharing network i'm afraid of (which is only active between the 2 largest chains in my province, the other pharmacies, small banners and even, yes, NO BANNER, green cross and that serpent around a spine symbol thing, like that one which is the closest to my home, was where this happened.
I told my doctor I was not part of the DSQ and he asked me why and I said, I don't have to give a reason, it's my own business and the government won't start controlling what stores I can go shop to, I don't doctor shop and you know it so... and he said yeah, I understand, a lot of health professionals signed that form too, no more DSQ at the end of my scripts now.
Afaik, there's still more not-much-reason-for pharm opiate addicts in the US than elsewhere. I'm speaking of persons by 100 000 or that kind of balancing way to count it, because of course you have 300 million more people than us.
Here if you tell your doctor that you're in pain in a foot let's say. He'll examine it, determine if he/she can tell it bone, circulatory, or muscle related. Likely give you an x-ray to go take at the hospital, which you just need to show up before 3pm in my town to get done, so if your appointment was in the morning you can get it done the same day. Last time before I was on ORT, I had a bad bronchitis turned into pneumonia with fever and shit, it took a few times, also telling them that I took care of myself before showing up (tylenol every 4 hours, and because I abused DXM powder so much back in 2001-2002, I have a recorded entry in my local ER that I do not tolerate DXM, at 90mg I start to get teeth clattering and that icky inner sensation I can't describe, and even just taking a regular 30mg dose gives me the shits, real bad, the Sudaded Plus with ibuprofen in it, the Sinus-Rinse (I also had sinusitis at the same time). So the ER scheduled me an appointment with a lung doctor the next day, and he scripted me a better antibiotic, fluoroquinolines are real shit (Avelox), he gave me Cefzil which worked very well, prednisolone regimen where you climb the dose and reduce it back to help you breathe better and a large 12oz Hycodan syrup bottle, because Ulone (an alternative we have to DXM and OTC 3,33mg of codeine per teaspoon syrup..better go with the generic T1's or 222's in that case) which is Clofenadiol, its so rare it didn't have an entry on wikipedia back then in 2010, that stuff also gives me intestinal problems). Told him how coughing was so painful that my whole chest was getting tender to the touch (which it was) he said it was cough-caused costochondritis.
Another bad bronchitis at the ER, I was in obvious bad shape and I said I'll let the antibiotics do their job, but my coughing is so hard, my upstairs neighbour complained to the owner (which she did) and she scripted me 60 30mg codeine after I said "there's nothing in the aisles that works!" and she told me "what works is codeine!", then I went "if you say so doc".
The only problem we have here is that not enough people have GP's and end up jamming up the ER's. It's getting better though, especially since the government gives bonus to doctors who take walk-ins so people do not go to the ER.
Finally, provinces have more rights than US states for example, Canada is not a Federation, it's a Confederation, where provinces have many Responsibilities. All Health Canada does is approve or disapprove medication or remove them from the market if proven dangerous or they're old and don't sell much at all. And those provincial like in mine programs? They won't stop people who have chronic pain, who are at the local pain clinic which is inside the hospital of my town, there's another one 1h30 west in another hospital. The people all become friends in the waiting rooms and those people...obviously have had no problem keeping the pharms flowing in the streets heh. I've never even seen heroin. It's not something people do here, if you were to admit just snorting or smoking heroin, all your friends and family would disown you (dramatizing but close enough, that's why I never told anybody when I was shooting up Dillies and HMC's like mad).
If there's heroin in this province, it's in Montreal, it's still rare there, and extremely expensive. A 30mg Hydromorph Contin is much more of a prize to the local junkies than PS4 worth of money for .25 or whatever the lowest quantity that's sold by those car delivery services. If you go downtown, I remember when I lived 3 years in Montreal, there's Haitians who will tell you, "icitte ya juste du blanc pis du buzz" quebec french to english : here there's only white(coke) and weed. No open selling of it.
As for when I get off bupe and would want something from old guy? Heh, I had a debt to the dude, but he almost doubled it out of nowhere the last times I got some Dillies from him, I paid cash, but when he told me I owned him X amount, I was like no way. And he shows me his notes which are all scribbled undecipherable bullshit with a total at the bottom where he had asked me to write in my initials. Well for some reason in that agenda there was some more calculations to the right and a number encircled. Later he called and said I'm sorry that's not you, but I said, fuck you, I'm not paying you anything and you won't be able to find me, ever. So, I got no connect for pharmies now, hell I hardly have weed connections anymore. Although, thankfully as I said before, when I get off bupe and its bad effects on my dental health, I'm promised Oxycodone-CR 60mg. APO, Cobalt, Teva, PMS, whatever, I don't care, I always just chewed them and ate them which all generics that way anyway.
edit: I forgot to mention, there is a private clinic in my town, they were illegal until sometime in 2007. You have to be willing to pay for it or your insurance covers it. It's in the same building that one of my pharmacy is in, and I always go right when they open at 8 am and there's a door inside the pharmacy to get into the clinic. And everyone I see go there are the elderly with great pensions, the kind our generation will not get. My GP makes money in other ways, on Fridays he does home medicine for those with mobility issues, that's another bonus (a call-in/walk-in is another bonus. He's an employee of the state who gets paid per visits by the state, paid more on Fridays for sure and for walk-ins.
