National Health Care: Waiting Lists for Waiting Lists

Sure, national health systems, or socialized medicine, provide care for everybody for nothing, but there's a significant downside. Readers of Interested-Participant know that providing everything to everybody for nothing results in depletion of resources and, with health care, this culminates in patient waiting times that are unhealthy. In fact, Canada Care provides computer-generated death condolences at the same time that patients are informed of their waiting times for procedures or appointments, just in case they died while waiting.

The subject of the long waits for medical care is a hot issue in Britain, Canada, and Australia, three nations with national health care which have failed miserably in tackling the problem. Hardly a week goes by without loud public complaints about the long waits. Check out the latest from Australia.

From The Courier-Mail:

WAITING lists at a major Queensland hospital have blown out to 10 years due to underfunding within the state's public health system, a doctor has told an inquiry.

Dr Jason Jenkins, a vascular surgeon at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital (RBWH), today gave a savage critique of Queensland's public health system, accusing the state Government of running hospitals like businesses as patients were dying waiting for surgery.

He said waiting times for non-urgent surgery at RBWH had blown out to 10 years and the situation had become so critical there were "waiting lists for waiting lists."

Got a boo-boo? Get in line.