Well, I’ve had it up to here with the Canadian medical system. I know it’s supposedly filled with dedicated professionals who work their guts out for us, the members of the public, but I’ve run into more than my fair share of “professionals” who couldn’t give a shit about us peons they’re meant to serve. We are, after all, the uneducated masses who couldn’t get a medical degree if we tried, while they are people to whom we should bow and scrape to show how unworthy we are to be served by them.

My late wife’s psychiatrist/psychologist

I’ll start a few years ago (over twenty) with my late wife’s psychologist or psychiatrist. (I do know the difference, but I just can’t remember the branch of medicine he practised.) She had been under his care occasionally for some time when she took me to see him, longer than I had known her. I don’t remember his name, unfortunately, but she thought the world of him.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think much of me, based on very little information. Supposedly in the name of protecting her from me, he gave me the third degree. It’s been so long now I forget the details, but she wasn’t impressed either and she was so shocked at his behaviour she never saw him again.

That’s all I can really say about him. I can’t really say any more, but he was really my first experience, at the age of about my early thirties, where I ran into someone who had absolutely no reason to think ill of me, and yet did. It wasn’t my last time.

Dr. Victor Wong, gastroenterologist

Many years later, as I entered “old age”, my GP — for whom I have nothing but respect, even as I wonder if he’ll be retiring soon — referred me to a gastroenterologist for a persistent (I would say chronic) heartburn issue. He had nothing but praise for Dr. Wong. His office scheduled a phone appointment for me, and when the day and time arrived … no phone call. I was incensed, so I immediately phoned my GP for an appointment where I intended to vent about Dr. Wong. Lo and behold, 23 hours and fifty minutes after he was supposed to call me, he phoned me. I lit into him for being a day late, and we spent the first five or ten minutes of the phone call arguing about the time he was supposed to call. He wouldn’t admit fault and neither was I.

During that phone call he prescribed me a medicine. He didn’t take the time to explain to me what it does or anything that would be helpful, absolutely nothing. So, knowing nothing about the drug, I didn’t fill the prescription. Some time later (days or weeks, I don’t remember) I showed up at Richmond General Hospital for the colonoscopy that he scheduled for me. After handing me the forms I had to fill out to absolve him of any responsibility for killing me during my colonoscopy, he hovered over me and couldn’t seem to understand why I wasn’t signing my life away without hesitation, despite the fact that I had been lying in bed for ages staring at the ceiling when I could have been given the forms while I waited. His first question of me once I signed was whether or not I had filled his prescription, and I told him no because I didn’t know anything about the drug. He immediately lit into me and couldn’t understand why I hadn’t followed his orders. He was still going on about this when he wheeled me into the theatre, where he and the staff immediately sedated me without my specific consent (maybe it was buried in the fine print I had just signed!), and started my colonoscopy.

I’ve received a couple of phone calls from his office since, but I have not returned them. I don’t want to deal with him again, and have told my GP so in no uncertain terms, and asked him to refer me to someone else. It will take months, but I’m not scheduled for another colonoscopy for months.

Dr. Alina Webber, Neurologist

I am greatly disappointed to have removed my review of one of Dr. Webber’s office staff. As I said in my review, “I have nothing but praise for Dr. Webber”. That part stands. But if you do a web search for Dr. Alina Webber, you will find many other reviews of her problem staff member.

Dr. Charles Yang, MD, FRCPC, obesity medicine

Again, being “old”, I was referred to Dr. Yang because of a swollen foot, and other “swelling” complaints I had after an overseas trip I had been on in January and February 2025. My GP decided to kill two birds with one stone.

Almost a year later, after the swelling foot problem had almost subsided, I was called by Dr. Yang’s office, but I decided to go ahead and visit him anyway. I live on one side of Vancouver and Dr. Yang’s office is on the other. (I’m talking about the City of Vancouver, Kerr Street to West Boulevard, not the entire Lower Mainland.) Despite leaving my home almost an hour before my appointment, I arrived at my appointment exactly 15 minutes late. (I’d have only been five minutes late, but I had the wrong address in my head, so walked a ten blocks round trip out of my way, when his office was directly opposite where I parked my car!) As soon as I walked into the completely deserted waiting room at 09:15 and reported my arrival, I was immediately told that because I was 15 minutes late for my 45-minute appointment and because Dr. Yang was “very busy” (although he obviously was sitting in his office twiddling his thumbs at that very moment), my appointment had been cancelled. I was then re-booked for an appointment in February 2026, almost a year after my initial complaint to my doctor!

So despite his being described as “grateful to have found Revolution Medical Clinic for his practice, surrounded by mentors and colleagues that exemplify a new model of compassionate care” and “[speaking] empathy fluently”, I was turned out onto the rainy street without even having laid eyes on the exalted Dr. Yang. This is despite the fact that all of the automated emails from Revolution Medical Clinic say “that sometimes we are running late. Medicine is an unpredictable practice and there are times where we can not [sic] predict how long a visit will be. We do apologize [sic] if we are late and know your time is valuable.” So I was late, and despite the fact that they tell everyone they could be running late, and despite the fact that the waiting room was deserted, and despite the fact that I was probably Dr. Yang’s first patient of the day, I was summarily dismissed from his office and told to come back in two months, by which time my complaint will be fourteen months old. If nothing else this demonstrates that time will often heal all (or most) wounds, because my swollen foot has almost healed itself, my other swelling will likely have healed itself due to a very recent change in lifestyle and where I live.

So fuck you, Dr. Yang, I will be cancelling my February appointment the minimum of five days before the appointment (or maybe not). If you’re too fucking important to see me when I’m a mere fifteen minutes late for an appointment three times as long, after I’ve jumped through all of your hoops and answered your half dozen irrelevant questionnaires and got your blood tests, and we can’t start off with a modicum of respect for each other, I won’t bother darkening your doorstep again.

Dr. Iman Hemmati, Rheumatologist

It only seems right that after complaining about a small number or doctors, I say something good about one.

I was referred to Dr. Hemmati in April 2025, I believe it was, after suffering from a gout attack. (Gout is damned painful, if you haven’t experienced it yet, and when it first appeared for me I had no idea where it come from and what was causing it, which led to my going to emergency.) I’ve only had one in-person appointment with him so far, and at least a couple of phone appointments.

I find him to be very soothing, both in person and on the phone. Despite my being behind on my blood standing order, he was understanding, and didn’t harangue me for being behind. I was apologetic for a couple of different things and he was very patient and understanding.

How hard is it for some doctors to be patient and understanding? Chances are your patient is under some stress, and being patient and understanding can go a long way towards making them feel better.

The not-so-universal Canadian medical system

To my specific complaints about these four doctors (or their staff), I will add the fact that the much vaunted “universal” Canadian medical system, isn’t universal at all. My evidence for this is that when I attempted, in October, to go to Quebec for a funeral — a once-in-a-lifetime event for the specific person that died — I couldn’t travel to Quebec without out-of-province medical insurance, and I couldn’t get out-of-province medical insurance having just been discharged from hospital — in Canada, the same country! — after my stroke! Even though my neurologist, Dr. Webber, couldn’t think of a better place for me to be than Montreal if I needed MS treatment, the fact is that if I needed medical treatment in Quebec I’d have to pay cash for it up front, and then hope that the BC government would reimburse me for it later! Seeing as I don’t walk around with five or fix figures in my back pocket, there was no way I could afford that, so I had to cancel my trip and forfeit the payments I had made to airlines and hotels for travel and accommodation.

So that’s my one and only experience with the fact that the “universal” Canadian medical (“Medicare”) system is a lie. It’s possible that my complaint is actually with the Quebec government, as they want so badly not to be part of Canada that they will deny medical care to people from other provinces, but for peons like me that’s splitting hairs. If I, as a Canadian, can’t get medical care in another province, our “universal” medical care system is a sham and a lie.

Update, 2025-12-24: Removed Dr. Webber’s review and added review of Dr. Hemmati.