Canuckistan’s ‘world-class’ medicine

While this widely covered story had a happy outcome for a Calgary family, what struck me was:

A rare set of identical quadruplets were born this week to a Calgary woman after she was sent to give birth in Montana because of a shortage of neonatal beds in Canada.

The naturally conceived baby girls ... were born Sunday in Great Falls, Mont., to Calgarians Karen and J.P. Jepp.

"There wasn't space anywhere in Canada, so we had to turn to our friends in Montana," [a spokeman] said.

Jepp was transfered by air to Montana on Friday - the fifth Alberta woman to be transfered to Great Falls this year because of neonatal shortages in Calgary.

That’s quite astounding. The medical system of an entire, supposedly ‘advanced’, industrial nation with a population of 33 million can’t come up with the spare capacity to accommodate one additional unusual birth. So an expectant mother has to be sent to a podunk American city of 57,000 in a small state of fewer than a million people.

It’s not as if this situation arose out of the blue - that quads were on the way was known for months. And this is the fifth time this year that Alberta has done this. I also know that BC regularly sends cases south and it follows that every other province does the same.

"World-class'? Make that 'third-world'.

Update: Mark Steyn weighs in on this at The Corner. And again here.