Health Care

[Argus]

Wasn't someone supposed to be doing something about health care? Didn't Ontario's Dalton McGuinty approve whopping big tax increases to solve the problems - whatever they were? I haven't seen much sign of progress. Hospital emergency room waits still average 6-10 hours. And after five full years of McGuinty the Ontario government seems proud that wait times for MRI machines is now often less than 100 days! Pardon me if I sound unimpressed. To me, a wait time of more than a week is grossly inefficient. But hey, at this rate we'll be down to that in no more than forty or fifty years.

Except in Ottawa, of course. You have to hand it to McGuinty. He certainly has never shown the slightest sign of favoritism for his home town. In every area of provincial jurisidction, Ottawa gets the short end of the stick. Whether it's funding for emergency services, capital projects, highways or schools, McGuinty hardly knows eastern Ontario is even on the map. The wait times for MRIs in Ottawa is approaching 1 year now. Good luck with that.

Ottawa wait times for MRIs continue to grow

That's not to say wait times haven't improved, of course. There have been big improvements! Most of them were brought about by simply redefining what wait time includes. Ontario's official definition of a 'wait time" now includes only the time between when surgery is ordered, and when it is performed. If you have to wait six months to get an appointment for the specialist, then another six months to get an MRI - well, that doesn't count! Way to go, Dilton! That's really brought down "wait times".

He did manage to find more money to increase the salaries for doctors, nurses, and health care workers, though. And, shockingly, we no longer have these groups protesting about the problems of the health care system! Remember when they were so loud and crying so many tears for the well-being of the sick? This follows a similar strategy of "improving education" by increasing teacher salaries, thus causing teachers to silence their very vocal concern about the state of education.

Mind you, it's hard to argue Ontario isn't getting just what it deserves. It voted for this lying phoney, after all.

[Michael Hardner]

Good luck in trying to find statistics on this.

Not surprisingly, the government is abysmal in their efforts to track their own efforts to reduce wait times. There are individual snippets of information, but nothing that is persistent, independent and clear. These conditions would be a minimum requirements for the average person to be able to assess the situation.

And since the government doesn't send out press releases advertising this fact, the press doesn't cover it.

I hated Harris as a premier, but McGuinty is worse in a different way. He absolutely relies on the sluggishness of the electorate, and only responds when something appears on the political radar.

[Smallc]

Good luck in trying to find statistics on this.

Thanks for wishing luck. It must have helped.

http://health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wai...public_mn.html#

[Argus]

Thanks for wishing luck. It must have helped.

http://health.gov.on.ca/transformation/wai...public_mn.html#

Not really. The wait times there don't give much information - other than to confirm that all procedures have wait times which are grossly too long. Two thirds of the hospitals listed haven't provided information on any given topic. And the "target dates" are ludicrous. The wait for general surgery has a target date of 182 days. And McGuinty can congratulate himself that he meets it. I don't consider 182 days to be satisfactory. I don't consider 30 days to be satisfactory.

We also have a different idea of waiting time. To me, the wait starts when I call my doctor looking for an appointment, and includes every minute thereafter until my treatment is given. To the province, there is no wait time until my doctor gets me through whatever diagnostic tests he thinks he needs (which includes a 1 year delay for an MRI in Ottawa) and then gets me an appointment with a specialist (which could be another several months of waiting), and then I actually sit in the office with the specialist. Actually, I don't think it even starts then if he wants me to have further diagnostic tests. It only starts when the specialist books an operating room. So to the province, the wait might be 180 days, but in reality it could be 400-500 days.

This is why people with the money go to the US, to get everything done within a week or so.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Argus

[Smallc]

It does seem that Ontario's system needs work. The reality is though, the cast majority of people have good health outcomes as found a few years ago in a CBC survey. We may think its too long, but most of the time it doesn't matter. For the most part, if you need something bad, you won't have to wait. If its elective, you'll wait. That wait varies from province to province.

[Mr.Canada]

This, once again points to the need for a two tier health care system. Some hospitals and clinics for everyone and some for the others who wish to pay an insurance premium.

[Michael Hardner]

It does seem that Ontario's system needs work. The reality is though, the cast majority of people have good health outcomes as found a few years ago in a CBC survey. We may think its too long, but most of the time it doesn't matter. For the most part, if you need something bad, you won't have to wait. If its elective, you'll wait. That wait varies from province to province.

Smallc,

I used to cheer for Canada's healthcare system. You're correct about the general status of the system, however the fact is that our situation is not improving, because it's not being managed.

What Argus said is correct. I searched for something and had about 1/3 of the hospitals with data, and 1/2 of those had "special notes". The system needs to be managed, and it's not being managed. It's not improving, and it won't improve until we demand that it does. Continually saying "it's better than the US" system virtually assures us that our system will deteriorate.

Also, trying to find data that's been tracked over a longer term, or something specific (emergency room times ? hello ?) is next to impossible. And the data that does exist isn't audited independently.

These should all be basic requirements, yet they're not being met simply because the public doesn't demand that they be met.

[Smallc]

Smallc,

I used to cheer for Canada's healthcare system.

You have to stop there though. Canada does not have a health care system. The provinces and territories do. The quality of the systems vary. We have to improve the areas that are not good and recognize the things that are good. I want things to be better to, but we don't make them better by complaining, we make them better by bringing problems to the attention of our doctors, hospital administrators, and politicians.

[madmax]

This, once again points to the need for a two tier health care system. Some hospitals and clinics for everyone and some for the others who wish to pay an insurance premium.

The insurance companies and the private health care facilities need to make a buck, but wait times have nothing to do with private and public health care.

There is nothing to stop a facility from being totally private and for someone to pay directly.

Most can't find long term sustainability without a government handout, which is why they want public private partnerships.

Then these private enterprises bleed the public purse dry.

This is part of the problem with the P3s in Ontario, and why the government is hedging away from them.

Despite repeated promises of transparency and public accountability, the details of the P3 deal were kept secret until a court order

last spring. Using new documents and a detailed review of the history of government claims and promises, the coalition has traced

the evolution of Brampton hospital bed planning and the costs of the P3 project. The report shows, irrefutably, that as the costs

increased from $350 million to $650 million (capital costs alone), one of the three clinical care buildings was cut, the number of ORs

was cut, and the total number of beds planned for the community was reduced from 720 to 479 (with a new promise to open 608

beds by 2012). The bed total is now only half of the projected need for 930 beds in Brampton by 2008, according to the latest

hospital infrastructure planning review done by the Halton-Peel District Health Council in 2003.

Key findings:

1. Significant cost increases of 186% from the beginning of the P3 negotiations with the for-profit consortium to the end of

construction. The hospital was projected to cost $350 million. It was finally built for $650 million, plus equipment and

service privatization contracts amounting to a total of more than $3 billion.

2. Changes to the hospital plans from a three-building facility with 20 operating rooms to a two-building facility housing 12

operating rooms.

3. Significant bed reductions of 22% (from 608 to 479 beds) in the new facility alone, and 34% across the two hospital sites in

Brampton (from 720 to 479 beds). These bed reductions occurred as the costs increased in the P3 deal. This is in line with

British Medical Journal findings that the high P3 costs led to an average 30% bed cuts.

4. More than 2 years delay in the construction deadlines

5. An increase in the local community fundraising burden of more than 200% (from an announced target of $60 – 100 million

to a final figure of $270 million) as the costs escalated in the P3 scheme.

[Argus]

This, once again points to the need for a two tier health care system. Some hospitals and clinics for everyone and some for the others who wish to pay an insurance premium.

I think that private health care providers can play an important role, but they're secondary. The main thrust of changes has to be to the public system which is not being efficiently run.

There is no cost-saving in having people wait six months for hip replacement surgery, or having people wait 3 months for cancer surgery, or 10 hours in an ER to get a broken wrist treated. Unless, of course, the patient dies before they get their treatment. Either you are providing as many hip replacement surgeries as there is demand for them - or the line gets longer and longer and longer and longer. Since the latter isn't happening, we are presumably providing as many operations as there is a demand for. Therefore, we ought to be able to do that far, faster. So why don't we?

Edited January 21, 2009 by Argus

[Michael Hardner]

Smallc,

we don't make them better by complaining, we make them better by bringing problems to the attention of our doctors, hospital administrators, and politicians.

Yes, you are correct.

However, there clearly isn't enough action by individuals to make a difference. Something else needs to happen - a healthcare user's union perhaps - to demand that these things get solved.

[Topaz]

We, babyboomer's have to remember that there's alot of us and in the bigger cities like TO. you will have to wait longer because there so many of us and we are all aging at the same time and the hospitals can only do so any people at a time. MY area, we just got a MRI and the waiting time was not more than 30 days BUT we don't have the population like Ottawa or Toronto. For those who don't want to wait you CAN go to Michigan and get it done, but you'll have to pay for it yourself, but then a two- tier healthcare system you would pay any way from 10,000-100,000.00 not many people have that kind of money.

[M.Dancer]

I had to get a colonoscopy and had to wait Three Days!

....and then they said I couldn't have the video!

[M.Dancer]

For those who don't want to wait you CAN go to Michigan and get it done, but you'll have to pay for it yourself, but then a two- tier healthcare system you would pay any way from 10,000-100,000.00 not many people have that kind of money.

Try less than $2,000....

[Topaz]

Try less than $2,000....

I don't if you saw the article in the paper but within the last year a woman went over to Michigan and got surgery over there and then she came back over to Ontario thinking the OHIP would pay for it and they wouldn't and so she had to pay the tab herself and I think if was around 15,000-30,000. Maybe what you are talking about is how much the insurance from a private insurance company would cost?

[M.Dancer]

I don't if you saw the article in the paper but within the last year a woman went over to Michigan and got surgery over there and then she came back over to Ontario thinking the OHIP would pay for it and they wouldn't and so she had to pay the tab herself and I think if was around 15,000-30,000. Maybe what you are talking about is how much the insurance from a private insurance company would cost?

Surgery and an MRI are two different things....I hope you are aware.

MY area, we just got a MRI and the waiting time was not more than 30 days BUT we don't have the population like Ottawa or Toronto. For those who don't want to wait you CAN go to Michigan and get it done, but you'll have to pay for it yourself, but then a two- tier healthcare system you would pay any way from 10,000-100,000.00 not many people have that kind of money

Or is this just the product of lazy and disjointed thoughts?

[Ontario Loyalist]

I had to get a colonoscopy and had to wait Three Days!

....and then they said I couldn't have the video!

What a shame! You could have then posted it on youtube and gotten 10,000 views-per-day from all of the homo sex perverts who lurk their... you'd like that, wouldn't you?

[M.Dancer]

What a shame! You could have then posted it on youtube and gotten 10,000 views-per-day from all of the homo sex perverts who lurk their... you'd like that, wouldn't you?

I never thought of that, though it sounds like you have thought about it quite a bit. Too much perhaps than healthy.

In future though, if you insist on placing me in your esoteric homoerotic phantasies, please keep them to yourself or post them in one of your other chat halls more suited to your unique peculiar tastes.

Edited January 22, 2009 by M.Dancer

[Ontario Loyalist]

I never thought of that, though it sounds like you have thought about it quite a bit. Too much perhaps than healthy.

In future though, if you insist on placing me in your esoteric homoerotic phantasies, please keep them to yourself or post them in one of your other chat halls more suited to your unique peculiar tastes.

Don't flatter yourself. You're talking about me as if I'm the one who spent numerous years in the Canadian Forces. I'm sure you're much more experienced and knowledgeable about the "unique peculiar" actions that two men can become engaged in. That's okay, if you don't want to come out with it--that's your choice...

[M.Dancer]

Don't flatter yourself. You're talking about me as if I'm the one who spent numerous years in the Canadian Forces. I'm sure you're much more experienced and knowledgeable about the "unique peculiar" actions that two men can become engaged in. That's okay, if you don't want to come out with it--that's your choice...

Yet for some completely, totally and reasonably explicable reason you continue to move the subject along....

And no I would never refer to you as a CF member, or any other variety of adult male or, ... female. In my mind you are simply an idiotic gender neutral brat with internet access and a penchant for male homosexual imagery along with a bizarre desire to insult your betters, which it seems to includes just about everyone.

Edited January 23, 2009 by M.Dancer

[Ontario Loyalist]

Yet for some completely, totally and reasonably explicable reason you continue to move the subject along....

And no I would never refer to you as a CF member, or any other variety of adult male or, ... female. In my mind you are simply an idiotic gender neutral brat with internet access and a penchant for male homosexual imagery along with a bizarre desire to insult your betters, which it seems to includes just about everyone.

My, my, you really think VERY highly of yourself if you consider yourself better than me... Well if that delusion makes you happy, keep on dreaming then...

But truth be told, there are only a few here who I need to defend myself against by resorting to "insult," and it's fair to say that you in particular have been the originator of any hostility. I'd say about about 95% of your posts consist of ad hominum attacks, and the remaining 5% opinionated gibberish that this forum has benefitted from in no way whatsoever...

[M.Dancer]

But truth be told, there are only a few here who I need to defend myself against by resorting to "insult....

The mere fact you feel you need to defend yourself by resorting to insult speaks volumes concerning your inferiority.

I don't think anything more needs to be said on the subject.

[85RZ500]

we make them better by bringing problems to the attention of our doctors, hospital administrators, and politicians.

Some of us think that they're the problem.

[Ontario Loyalist]

The mere fact you feel you need to defend yourself by resorting to insult speaks volumes concerning your inferiority.

I don't think anything more needs to be said on the subject.

Sadly, I'll admit, that it's something that I've allowed you to drag me into... "resorting" to something means that one lowers oneself to that level, and to deal with the likes of you that means a considerable drop. Like I've said before, the grievous nature of your conduct really should have you banned, but you seem to be immune, and I think that there's something, some sort of relationship or exchange that solidifies your immunity.

[fellowtraveller]

som,ebody say 'good luck' on getting stats for wait times?

Not in Alberta