Canada Health Care - Waiting for Rations

(Ottawa, Canada) After a two-week wait to see a general practitioner, a woman learns that her daughter must see a neurologist to explain her chronic seizures.

About 2 weeks later, we finally got the referral to a neurologist at the Civic Hospital. Are you ready for this? The appointment is for August 18. April 4, when she had her big seizure, to August 18 - that's 4.5 months, for an 18-year old girl who is having chronic seizures.

Why a patient with serious, chronic seizures is not classified as an emergency case is unknown. Beyond a doubt, however, a four and one-half month wait for medical attention is outrageous. The patient's mother is understandably livid.

I never think, "If I had lots of money, I could buy a giant plasma TV and have a computer in every room of the house, and take vacations on a private island in the Caribbean." All I think is, "I'd get my kids the hell out of this dingy backwater, and down the U.S. where they have a decent medical system, and you don't die waiting for a doctor to look at a lump in your breast."

While recognizing that long wait times are a fact of life under a socialized system, Canada Health is not heartless as demonstrated by this gesture.

A letter from the Moncton Hospital to a New Brunswick heart patient in need of an electrocardiogram said the appointment would be in three months. It added: "If the person named on this computer- generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies."

Therefore, a patient either waits for the specified time and gets treated or dies, whichever comes first. If it's the former -- Phew!

If it's the latter, the survivors will be comforted by knowing that a computer is sorry.

Tip: Nasty, Brutish & Short

Companion post at SocGlory.