Canada's Wonderful Health Care System (again)

I just got news that my Canadian brother-in-law's girlfriend (they're both high-school seniors) was vomiting blood the other day and went in to see the doctor. She has a condition, which I forget what it's called, that leads to this sort of thing. Well, it seems that there could be more problems than what's usual, and she needs to have an endoscopy to check things out, i.e. make sure she doesn't have cancer or some other equally wonderful problem. They have put her on the waiting list for the diagnostic procedure, and she's slotted in for -- wait for it -- August. Wonderful! Go, Canada!

On a side note, it turns out that her family are Jehovah's Witnesses. Now you might think that this has something to do with them not allowing her to have treatment, but no. She decided that the JW program is full of bunk and so they've done the JW equivalent of excommunicating her. She has to pay rent until she graduates, then she gets kicked out. They cancelled their land phone line and got everyone in the family new cell phones, except her. After she leaves the house they will never initiate contact with her, though she could call them. Really nice.

The long and short of this are that my mother-in-law asked me to find out what it would cost to have the procedure done down here. I called up the UW hospital and they got me in contact with the digestive disease clinic. The procedure will cost $1500+ depending on whether or not she needs biopsies or whatever.

Stupid Canada.