OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Program) is the worst health care system in the world beside the British NHS (also publicly funded). Growing up I was proud to have a publicly funded healthcare system with equal access to all. OHIP is sort of a religion. It’s the belief that healthcare can be provided for all by the state. This belief is false.
When I developed IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) in my late 20’s I was thankful that the system was there for me. I figured that with OHIP I could manage this condition. I was thankful that I wouldn’t have to spend enormous amounts of money out of pocket to deal with my health care issue. (Eventually, I had to take so many expensive supplements to counteract OHIP’s poisons that supplements are now my life support system and contribute to a large portion of my monthly expenses.)
OHIP ran no fewer than 15 different types of tests on me across 100’s of tests. With every test they ran nothing was revealed. I told my doctors that they were testing me when my flare ups were down. Public healthcare has long lines and it takes 3 months to get in for a colonoscopy. I was given the advice to ‘stay sick’ for the colonoscopy so that it could detect something. This advice came from patient groups in Ontario. I didn’t think it was a good idea to ‘stay sick’ and I took care of my stomach the best I could. The result was that whenever they ran a test, I generally wasn’t on a flare up.
I don’t think I have IBS. I think I have something worse. I think OHIP’s tests aren’t timely and also aren’t up-to-date. OHIP must have spent thousands on me though with numerous repeated (flawed) tests. All tests were useless. They were also very painful. One involved shoving a tube down my throat while I gagged repeatedly. I was supposed to be sedated but I indicated to my physician that I wasn’t sedated. He continued with the procedure anyways and told me later that I was just delirious. I wasn’t delirious, I was awake. OHIP is delirious.
All the pills that were given me were useless. I was given scores of different medications, all which were promised would ‘get me back on my feet’. They all didn’t work. They all were riddled with side effects that made them intolerable. Also, they worsened my condition.
One pill I was very concerned with was a PPI (proton pump inhibitor, Prevacid, Nexium, Pantaloc, et al). It literally shuts down the acid production at the source. I expressed concern that I was being advised to spend my life on this pill. I thought such a pill, with such strong core effects would be harmful in the long term. My doctors laughed at me and told me that I was being neurotic. A few months ago it was revealed that those same pills cause cancer and long term health effects. I stopped taking my PPI in August. I’m still sick. PPI withdrawal is a real issue and causes months of gastritis, allergies and other health issues.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6415482/
Note that with this PPI as with most OHIP medications… it wasn’t helping me in the slightest. The only reason I stayed on it is because it caused rebound gastritis upon cessation. (I was able to come off my PPI this time by spending $100’s out of pocket on natural remedies to counteract the rebound gastritis.) This is a common pattern with OHIP medications… they don’t help but you stay on them to avoid the withdrawals.
Early in my treatment, after the tests all came back negative doctors referred me to psychiatry. Why? Because psychiatry is the wastepaper basket for patients doctors get frustrated with. When I was in psychiatry, I was told not to discuss my stomach symptoms. This was crazy making because my stomach was killing me and I was told to only discuss my emotions. Note to reader: If you ever enter therapy of any type where the therapist says things like “we only will discuss your emotions”, exit immediately (it is a form of emotional coercion).
Weakened, I was ‘gaslit’ (emotionally coerced) into accepting that I was depressed and that antidepressants were the answer for my stomach problems. My family doctor, in addition to my psychiatrist, told me that IBS is treated with antidepressants and that for many people, “stomach problems simply go away with an antidepressant.”
All antidepressants made me infinitely worse. In fact, they made me suicidal. Psychiatry, by leaps and bounds, was the most destructive force in my life bar none. I have spent the past 4 years coming off their poisons. I have been violently ill since 2015 coming off of Effexor (venlafaxine) which is a poison that should be banned. Venlafaxine withdrawal caused me to attempt suicide. My psychiatrists dismissed my explanation and said that it was just a worsening of my depression. This is on the box of Venlafaxine:
Psychiatrists are evil. They are a rogue specialty of medicine that operates without a diagnostic test. As a result they operate in darkness. The entire specialty of medical psychiatry ought to be abolished. It helps no one. Just research the numbers for yourself. The evidence suggests that all psychiatric pills offer no benefit above placebo.
I am still addicted to a pill called Klonopin (clonazepam) which I was told was a safe pill that could be safely tapered off of. Jordan Peterson is currently in rehab due to this same pill. When it was suggested I said: “this pill is a narcotic”. “Pff” my doctor laughed, “it’s no narcotic, leave the medicine to the doctors please”. 2 years ago that pill was put on Ontario’s Narcotic Monitoring Program and I now have to present ID just to pick up the prescription and I have to go to my doctor continually to have the prescription renewed. I don’t have the health nor funds to have the pill compounded for me such that I can taper off of it slowly and safely. OHIP doesn’t fund cessation programs nor does it believe that clonazepam is addictive nor problematic (despite having created a narcotic monitoring program for it to annoy patients trying to obtain it).
My CPSO (College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario) complaint against the psychiatrist who forced me to talk only about my emotional issues was laughed at and dismissed. In my complaint I suggested that Venlafaxine was much more than an antidepressant. I suggested that it has opioid activity, angel dust like activity, and amphetamine type activity and presented compelling evidence. I was laughed at again. I’m never wrong about things like this. In five years, I’ll be able to produce a PubMed article proving that Venlafaxine is an opioid (and a few other things). It’s only a question of time. A CPSO complaint is just a waste of your time. There is no recourse for patients wounded by OHIP.
I can’t sue any of my doctors. I can file the papers, but in Canada, we have the Canadian Medical Protective Agency. This is a tax funded bevy of lawyers who are hell bent on making sure not a single patient lawsuit succeeds in Canada. This tax funded monopoly proudly boasts of their zero loss record in their annual reports. It makes it such that a patient in Canada effectively cannot sue their doctors, despite the legal ability to file the lawsuit. Again, this is why publicly funded healthcare doesn’t work. It requires the creation of a publicly funded mob of lawyers to defend it. This inherently denies patient rights at the source.
— Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/medical-malpractice-doctors-lawsuits-canada-1.4913960
OHIP took a condition, IBS, which is manageable in other health care systems and made it infinitely worse. It ran 100’s of tests with no results. It gave me 100’s of medications, all of which did nothing at all to help me, moreover made me sicker and addicted. I had 3 full workups from 3 different medical centers. All came back: “IBS”.
I love the definition of IBS:
– We don’t know what it is
– It is a diagnosis of exclusion
– once other conditions are excluded, it’s safe to say IBS is harmless despite being ‘uncomfortable’ and…
– We’re sure 100% that you can work on it… so get back to work you lazy complaining patient.
That summarizes where OHIP went wrong with me. It focused on getting me back to work which is a huge difference from getting me back to health. All OHIP wants to do is force people to work and keep the disability lines short. It is an inevitable consequence of healthcare being provided by the state. Having all citizens working is a goal of the state. It should not be the goal of medicine. The goal of medicine should be to have people as healthy as possible, and if they’re unable to work, they should be made comfortable as possible. The goals of state sponsored medicine and humanitarian medicine are at odds with one another.
After battling purported IBS for nearly 2 decades and progressively getting worse and worse, unable to work, I finally turned to the state in desperation for financial assistance. I was denied. I was, for a short term, given a measly $1000 / month which is on average only a quarter my monthly expenses. I was quickly kicked off disability after only receiving 5 months of this miserly income stipend. I now have no income. Our family is a family of 4. I have 2 dependents and no income. OHIP doesn’t care. The government of Ontario and Canada doesn’t care.
My nativity of youth is replaced with sheer hatred of OHIP. I never want to see nor hear from an OHIP doctor again. My children have all been taught to avoid OHIP doctors at all costs. All of their medications don’t work. None of their techniques or tests are revealing. OHIP was a giant waste of time that served only to worsen my condition.
They now have left me a medical refugee, trapped in a sick body with no income and only stress. The OHIP IBS brochures all read “reduce stress”. Hilarious.
OHIP doesn’t work.
OHIP doesn’t care about sick people.
OHIP should be abandoned.
