Rare identical quadruplets born to Canadian mom in Montana
One in 11 million to 16 million.
Those were Karen Jepp's odds of giving birth to identical quadruplets, and the mother from Calgary, Alberta, delivered 鈥?in Great Falls, Mont.
Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia were born within five minutes of each other Sunday afternoon at 31 weeks, at Benefis Healthcare.
Why Great Falls? As the Toronto Globe & Mail explains, Jepp and her husband, J.P., were sent across the border because no neonatal intensive care unit in Canada had enough beds for them. She was two-centimeters dilated and having contractions when airlifted 300 miles.
Reached at her hospital bed, Jepp, 35, told the Globe & Mail she was still recovering from the travel and labour.
"We've had an awful couple of weeks. They've been really tough," she said. "We're in another country. We're just trying to get through the next few days. We need to get back home."
Yesterday, two girls were sent home to a hospital in Canada and the other two are expected to go there soon, writes the Great Falls Tribune (a Gannett paper). They will all stay in special care for six weeks.
She called the pregnancy "an absolute roller-coaster of emotion." She and her husband, a nurse, already have a 2-year-old son.
The Globe & Mail writes that Jepp's case highlights the increasing tendency for Canadian women with high-risk pregnancies to be sent to the United States to give birth, a development some attribute to an increase in the number of premature births, a nursing shortage and a stretched health-care system. "were sent across the border because no neonatal intensive care unit in Canada had enough beds for them."
You did read the entire article, didn't you?
We have the best medical in the world, as long as you can pay for it or you have insurance. Well, not even insurance.
When you have to take insurance companies to court to get medical care, there's a HUGE problem. Gee...I guess that super socialized health care system Micheal Moore and the Democrats like Hillary want and preach on for hours and hours about isn't all it's cracked up to be... Gee a smaller more sparsly populated country doesn't have enough beds for a sudden population explosion. Hard to believe isn't it? I hope they have insurance or the births will be on us folks like it or not. Tell you what. Poll ALL Canadians whether they'd trade their health care system for ours. The vast majority would not. It's not that the quality is bad. It's great- because it is so damn expensive. So the problem isn't quality, it's access. It's the fact that so many people get absolutely nothing because they have been priced out of the market and there are no affordable alternatives.
Ask the women giving birth in Canada who wouldnt be able to afford the bills in an American hospital what they think about this.
To the rest of the world, America's health care system is shocking. Very few people in countries with socialised health care would ever want to see it go. They complain about how it's run and administered sometimes, but that is not the same.
Canada doesn't allow private health care to run alongside their national health, but other countries do and it works perfectly- everyone has decent free health care (for far less in taxes than insurance costs in America, because there is no middle man) but you can pay a bit extra for private care if you'd like, which means you skip waiting lists and get to stay in fancy hospitals- and it's not very expensive because it's only for hospitalisation. Probably still less than Americans pay for insurance, for the same quality, and those who can not afford to pay the extra still get perfectly reasonable care. "bad healthcare," or the hospital was too full?
Try not to spin it as much. I've seen this article posted on here dozens of times already. I love how everyone keeps trying to say "SEE! SEE! CANADA'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS HORRIBLE! WE CAN'T DO THIS HERE IN THE US!" Healthcare is a disaster.
It may be good healthcare, but the system sucks.
I am a nurse, who yearly makes less money though I gain more experience this is due to crappy payback so insurance can profit , and it is a train wreck.
Most intelligent people want it cleaned up and know that Medicare/Medicaid is a pitiful joke and private insurance is outrageous and unaffordable. We want a change, not socialized healthcare. More affordability and a system of checks and balances. No one should have to work two jobs as my husband does just so one of them can pay for health insurance, that is absurd. UnAmerican and lacks family values, dad should be spending some time with his kids! Considering I've been without coverage for 3 years, Canada's health care system seems ok to me. Just because some Canadians aren't happy with their country's health care system doesn't mean ours is good. There are way too many people in this country who can't afford medical care and consequently, don't get it. They frequently wait until they need an ER and by then they're sicker.
Another country's shortcomings don't mean ours is perfect, that's for sure. You forgot to mention that the Canadian health care system COVERED the mother and her babies. Their system covers all medical expenses when they need to be sent here for delivery. AND that if she had been an American woman with a similar pregnancy and she had no insurance .... well you know what kind of trouble she and her babies would be in.
The funny thing is that you hail how great our medical practice is compared to theirs which it is, but you neglect to mention that Canadians can better afford OUR system better than a lot of Americans can. THAT is a disgrace. The idea behind Universal Healthcare is to keep the quality and lose the price. It is entirely possible too. Universal health care = Bad Idea
Plain and simple | 