In Canada, decisions about health care services are made by political appointees. So naturally, the provisioning of such services becomes politicized.
Few people know this more acutely than Janice Fraser. She needed a bladder operation but was told that, under Canada’s strictly regulated national health system, the hospital was only allowed to perform 12 such operations a year. At her position on the waiting list, she’d have to wait nearly three years. Janice wasn’t going to be able to wait that long; she was running the risk of wearing an external urine bag for the rest of her life.
So Janice hoped that she’d be able to make a personal appeal to Ontario’s Health Minister, a man named George Smitherman. Unfortunately for Janice, Smitherman didn’t have time to meet with her. He was too busy meeting with other constituents, including a man living as Susan Gapka. The time Gapka spent with the Health Minister helped convince him to support government coverage of sex change operations.
Two Women, a new short film by Stuart Browning and Blaine Greenberg (the executive producers of Indoctrinate U) shows how putting health care decision-making in the hands of politicians yields decisions that are politically motivated. Instead of serving individuals like Janice, politicians would rather pick up votes in blocks by catering to interest groups.
For Janice Fraser, who did not belong to a politically correct interest group, the results were tragic.
