Welcome to socialize healthcare. You know who always benefits in such a system? Government employees of all stripes. Just ask the RCMP, OPP and TPS how much they are stealing. The system is truly bankrupt with little innovation or private business expansion.
You want this system? Send this news link to Bernie Sanders and get his response. You see, even if you believe something is free (which it is not), you have to access it for it to have any value to you.
'It's insane': Ont. patient told she'd have to wait 4.5 years to see neurologist
An Ontario doctor says health-care wait times have reached “insane” lengths in the province, as one of her patients faces a 4.5-year wait to see a neurologist.
When Dr. Joy Hataley, a family practice aneredsthetist in Kingston, Ont., recently tried to send a patient to a neurologist at the Kingston General Hospital, she received a letter from the specialist’s office telling her that the current wait time for new patient referrals is 4.5 years.
The letter said that, if the delay is “unacceptable” to Dr. Hataley, she should instead refer the patient to a neurologist in Ottawa or Toronto.
Dr. Hataley, who has been outspoken about wait times and other issues plaguing Ontario’s health care system, said the wait time “shocked” her.
She wanted to shock others as well, so she tweeted a photo of the letter and tagged Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins and Kingston-area MPP Sophie Kiwala.
View image on Twitter
'It's insane': Ont. patient told she'd have to wait 4.5 years to see neurologist
An Ontario doctor says health-care wait times have reached “insane” lengths in the province, as one of her patients faces a 4.5-year wait to see a neurologist.
Surprise! Not.
The shortage was anticipated almost ten years ago. That there aren't enough neurologists in Ontario isn't exactly a problem that political action can correct, and what little politicians can do cannot be effected "overnight," as it were. Not just anybody can be a neurologist and it takes about 12 years, from the start of college to the end of residency, for someone to become one.
While it's not Ontario residents' fault that there is a neurologist shortage in their city, it is their fault for not paying attention to the "writing on the wall" that appeared nine years ago and making plans to be or to, if/when it becomes necessary to do so, to move to someplace else (or at least see a doctor in a different city), somewhere that wasn't projected to have a shortage of neurologists. If people would heed the "writing on the wall" while it's on the wall, they wouldn't have problems later when the portents come to fruition.
So while it's not the residents' fault there is a neurologist shortage, it is their fault that they are sitting there needing to see a neurologist in a city that has a shortage of them, a shortage that was predicted. We all know we cannot control things like how many people pursue neurology careers, but we can control our own readiness to handle whatever challenging situations are foreseen and foretold. [1]
Also, the "socialized medicine" line doesn't hold water.
Neurologist earnings in Ontario (a good deal
more for surgeons) are high enough to attract people to the profession, and the government in CAN/Ontario didn't enact a moratorium on neurologists. Socialized "anything" is an economic situation whereby the government owns the given factors of production and the government defines what will be produced, how much and how, where and when it will be distributed. Nothing of the sort has happened in Canada with regard to neurologists.
What am I saying by way of the comments above? I'm saying take responsibility and ownership of one's own life and stop blaming someone else for what one should have done and, for whatever reason, did not do.
Note:
- Obviously one cannot predict that one will have an acute need for a neurologist. One can, however, reasonably anticipate whether one will, within the next decade or so, need a neurologist for a chronic condition. To do that, all one needs to do is know one's age. If one is 55 today, one will in a decade or soon after, likely need to see a neurologist.
Seeing as ones 50s are part of one's peak earning years, that's the time (at the latest) to evaluate and lay the foundations for what one is going to need/want -- socially medically, etc. -- when they are 65, 75, and older. When one is 68 and needs a neurologist and can't see one for four years because there is a shortage of supply, unless one is very well off, it's too late to do much about it but "cry woe is me" and blame others for something that one could have planned for ages ago so that it's not a problem one now must endure.
Aside:
I wonder...Do young people searching for career paths pay attention to reports like the one linked above and make their educational and career choices in light of them. Few things make figuring out what to do with one's life, career-wise, easier. It's "writing on the wall" that's there for all to see.