Health Care

Personal Experience

My father in-law had to get his hips replaced and was told by doctors several years ago that he should expect to have both replaced. However, the kicker was that because of the lengthy wait times, they would wait until it was an absolute necessity (as in to much pain to endure) would he be put on a list. Now the current provincial government will tell you that it only takes 3 - 6 month before you will get your hip replacement. LOL! It took more than a year per hip. In the meantime he could not even walk. Hmmm, I hate to see what the wait times were before Mr. McGuinty came to power and improved them?

Emergency experience

My 78 year old neighbor severed his thumb this fall while cutting a piece of wood on his table saw. After bandaging his thumb with gauze etc. I rushed him to emergency and it took 5 hours of waiting before a doctor could treat him. The system is so flawed that he was assessed to be a level 3 triage patient since he was only dripping blood. Should a 78 year old man who has severed his thumb have to sit in emergency for 5 hours? Do not blame the staff since they are clearly overworked and understaffed. However here are some very simple observations and hopefully some elected official at some point in time will read this and seriously consider some of them:
1. There are not enough staff for emergency operations - PERIOD!
2. The criteria for visiting an emergency room is flawed as in there isn't any. I can walk into emergency with any minor ache or pain and if you know anyone who works there they will tell you that a significant portion of patients they see should have never been treated at emerge. Create criteria and educate people!
3. Since we have a public funded and universal health care system (in theory), why is it that there are not enough family doctors for everyone? Stop blaming past governments and deal with the actual problem. Hint! No one wants to be a GP in Ontario anymore - the pay sucks and the hours are brutal.

I worked in health care for 6 years before I started my own company and most executives always told me the same thing: "There is ample enough $$$ in the system, it is just being mismanaged" Hmmm does that sound familiar to you?