Canadian Medical Care - study - talk - more waiting

Have you ever heard about the Wait Time Alliance? A group of Canadian medical associations has issued a report on how the government should deal with the time it takes for you to get medical care.

"No More Time to Wait" - identifies wait time thresholds for these five areas, beyond which best available evidence and clinical consensus indicate patient health is likely to be adversely affected. The report also provides governments with recommendations on establishing a framework to improve access and reduce wait times.

Here's the report.

Here's an index of media reports on the report.

The Minister of Health says his department 'Health Canada' will have it's own bench marks ready for December of this year with a goal towards seeing significant reduction in wait times by March or 2007 . How many Canadians will get seriously ill, before the system delivers on the bench marks.

The Minister is quoted; "When you put yourself in the position of being a patient, you want to make sure that the health-care providers on the front lines are able to tell you, based on medical evidence and clinical requirements, what the wait times ought to be" .
The Globe and Mail

Confirmation, wait times are endemic to the government delivered medical care system. The objective of this exercise is to reduce wait times, as opposed to creating a patient centered system, with multiple delivery options, to be used at the discretion of the user. What Canadians get is a continuation of a fundamentally flawed government controlled, rationed service, in which wait times maybe reduced, however they remain systemic. The best a monopoly can do is ration service while charging higher fees. One of the highest costs is your well being as you are forced to cue. That is hardly universal access.

Canadians are once again being duped to accept waiting, as simply part of the medical care process in Canada. Political leadership presents the public medical care system, as an uniquely Canadian institution. Canadians. naively. believe universality in medical care, equates to compassion. A trait that hits a Canadian nerve. We seem eager to trade the perception of compassion for access to medical care when we need it. Compassion doesn't go far on, while one waits for care.