You can make arguments for or against the notion of expending service on likely-to-die patients; I've written on the topic myself. It's important to recognize, regardless of your position, that medical service providers are human; their are physical and emotional strains associated with related professions that practitioners simply can't brush off. ER nurses are suffering from burnout, but if they try to get leave or assistance, they're costing the system more and are being told, instead, to suck it up - just like other professionals do. You know, like over-stressed contractors and real estate agents. It's not fair for public professionals, regardless of the real impact of their work on society, to get more benefits than someone operating in the private sector, after all. And, as we all know, the economic well is drying up. It's time taxpayers paid less.
Rob Ford is a champion of this kind of thinking. He seems not to value the public employee, unless their job is to find savings. Tim Hudak operates the same way, as does Stephen Harper. You needn't worry about a Conservative trifecta to see how a focus on the bottom line is already impacting healthcare, though - there's a wave of cost constraint that is washing through the public healthcare system from top to bottom.
Bureaucrats will tell us that Cesarean Sections are being used for cosmetic purposes by mothers-to-be not wanting to go through natural births and as such, doctors are being told to discourage the practice where possible. I have spoken to a number of oobstetricians and have yet to hear supporting evidence. Walking around Labour and Delivery in city hospitals are clip-board wielding suits, discouraging spending wherever they think they can - I'm not sure what training they have, but it must be disconcerting for medical doctors to be made to second-guess their split-second decisions not on the side of life, but on the side of finances.
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