Canada proud of its hospital wait times

Hat tip to ManicNole for sending this to me. Link to story here.

Liberals like to point to the wonderful government-run health care system in Canada, as a model of how to do things here. Well, here are a few jewels from the Canadian article:

The five regional hospitals covering Essex, Kent and Lambton counties jointly offer the shortest median wait times for hip and knee replacements and cataract procedures in Ontario, and significantly shorter times for several other procedures, according to a provincial report released Wednesday.

Translation: Sure, we suck when it comes to care that alleviates your pain...but at least we suck less than other regional hospitals in Canada.

The report says that the median wait time for total hip replacement surgery in our LHIN is 16 weeks, compared to 24 for Ontario -- the lowest in the province. The report also says that 71 per cent of patients were able to get their operations within the recommended wait time of 25 weeks.

Translation: Suck it up, whiner, and tough out the next four months while waiting on that new hip. No pain, no gain!

Patients here waited six weeks for cataract surgery, compared to 16 for Ontario, and 65 per cent received it within the recommended waiting time of four months.

Translation: Surely you can go a measley month without seeing, right?

Similar trends were noted for three out of four types of cancer surgeries. All figures were not available Wednesday, but the report indicated that local patients waited 25 days for a large bowel resection, just under the Ontario median time of 26 days. For mastectomy operations, the local time was 19 days compared to 29, and the wait was 72 days for a radical prostatectomy, compared to 87 for Ontario.

No jokes...this is just pathetic. Cancer victims can't even be bumped to the front of the line? Urgency is not in the vocabulary, "eh?"

The only cardiac procedure done in this LHIN is at Hotel-Dieu Grace, which performs angiograms -- a diagnostic procedure to check blockage of arteries. That lab will be closed all month while it is equipped with new machinery and remodelled.

All other cardiac patients are sent to London or elsewhere. The report shows that local heart patients can wait for three days for an urgent angiography, and 21 for an elective diagnosis. The Ontario time is 24 days.

Do I even need to comment on the scariness of this scenario? If you think your artery is blocked, wait until next month...or go to London. If it's "urgent", then they'll move at warp speed...3 days!

Wow...now our health care system doesn't look as bad as I thought!