Canadian Health Care Official Hits Back at Brock Lesnar

(It’s all fun and games until you piss off a Canadian. Have we learned nothing from Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill” album?)

Brock Lesnar refused to name the hospital in Canada where he received care that he likened to “a third-world country,” but it turns out he doesn’t need to. The CEO of the regional health authority in Brandon, Manitoba has done it for him, and she’s none too pleased with Lesnar’s description of the facilities. Carmel Olson told the Globe and Mail (tip via CP reader Organ Donor) that she took “real exception” to Lesnar’s third-world country remark, and suggested that maybe Lesnar freaked out a little too soon and didn’t give her staff the chance to go to work:

“The attending physician was very qualified and very respected,” she said. “He’s been in the business for more than 30 years. And he has the skills to diagnose a condition such as diverticulitis without a CT scan. …We have checked this particular health record and we are quite confident that the correct diagnosis was given and the best course of treatment offered. We have state-of-art equipment here. We are hardly a one-horse operation.”

Lesnar wasn’t satisfied. He checked himself out and had his wife drive him back to the U.S. in what he describes as a harrowing 100 mph drive that “saved [his] life.” Olson suggested maybe he had another reason for fleeing in her parting shot, adding, “maybe he didn’t like the bill.”

It’s hardly surprising that the Canadians didn’t take kindly to having their hospital bashed in the media but one of the UFC’s biggest stars, but you’d almost think they’d be used to stuff like that from brash Americans. It seems that where Lesnar really ticked them off was in explaining that the only reason he was even talking about it was to make a point to Americans at a time of intense debate over the future of our health care system.

Olson didn’t refute Lesnar’s claim that the Mayo Clinic was superior to the hospital in Brandon – after all, one of those places is world famous and one isn’t – but she added, “I really take exception to someone giving us that kind of media coverage for their own political reasons.”