It constantly amazes me what sort of things the Canadian medical profession is researching... and how the government has muddled up what health-care is supposed to be about:

Canadian researchers say they've devised a test that helps rescue workers spot those futile cases and save a frantic trip to the hospital.

As usual, it boils down to bling bling.

"This 'rule' for cardiac arrest was accurate 99.5 percent of the time -- that means the chance of saving someone is one in a thousand," Laurie Morrison, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Toronto, said Wednesday.

The proposed rule for heart-attack patients acknowledges the fact that roughly $1 billion is spent annually transporting to hospital emergency rooms heart-attack victims who are beyond recovery.

It's frightening to see the numbers laid out right in front of you. The government doesn't think that a one-in-a-thousand chance of saving lives is worth $1B. If this rule were to have been applied in this study, four people would have been left for dead, but they survived.

Why are these people trying to kill people? Isn't medicine supposed to be about saving lives, not when it's best to end them? I would be seriously pissed off to find out that my doctor was thinking about anything other my best interests.

Maybe this is how healthcare in Canada will finally destroy itself. Eventually the bureaucracy could stop providing services all-together. Reports of a pedestrian hit by a semi-truck? Don't bother responding, highly unlikely he'd survive. What's that, a patient has terminal cancer? Don't bother with Chemo, it's too expensive. Hell, everybody who comes into a hospital should just be given a lifetime supply of marijuana so everybody can just let all their problems fade into the haze.

The problem stems from the fact that healthcare in Canada is controlled by the government, and therefore a political issue. When it comes to the issue of saving lives, there shouldn't be any political concerns.