Well, I was just trying to tell the truth. It seems that the Canadian medical care officals need to invite a Telecom Software Engineer to help solving the scheduling or the queuing problem.
Just kidding(No offensive)
Good luck.
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http://www.benefitsworld.com/aa/health/MedWait20031021.asp
Medical care wait times increased over past year in Canada
October 21, 2003
TORONTO - A national survey conducted by the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based right-wing think-tank, released Monday, the average waiting times across Canada to see a doctor and to get diagnostic and other essential medical care have increased in the last year and have reached an all-time high over the past decade, suggests .
More than 90 per cent of average waiting times are considered beyond clinically "reasonable," indicates the survey. The institute surveyed 2,817 specialists across Canada for its 13th annual waiting-list survey, titled Waiting Your Turn: Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada.
The total waiting time - from the moment a patient gets a referral from a family doctor to the time he or she gets treatment - in a dozen specialties covering areas such as cancer, heart, eye and orthopedic care rose from 16.5 weeks in 2001-02 to 17.7 weeks in 2003, the survey suggests.
"Canadians are waiting almost 18 weeks for essential medical care," said John Graham, the institute's director of health and pharmaceutical policy research.
"The standard solution - throwing more money at the problem - is just not working. "
Graham said the survey found total waiting time for care is 90 per cent longer now than in 1993.
The rise in total waiting time is the result of both an increase in the first wait (from visiting a general practitioner and getting a consultation with a specialist, which grew from 7.3 to 8.3 weeks over the one-year period) and the wait between the consultation with a specialist and the actual treatment (which rose from 9.2 to 9.5 weeks), the survey concludes.
This year's nationwide increase in total average waiting time reflects increases in seven provinces, with decreases in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the survey found.
Among the various specialties, the shortest total waits were for cancer surgery (6.1 weeks), cancer radiation (8.1 weeks) and general surgery (10.3 weeks), while patients waited longest for orthopedic surgery (32.2 weeks), eye treatment (30 weeks) and plastic surgery (28.6 weeks).
Getting diagnosed for a problem in the first place also proved to be more burdensome for Canadians, according to the survey.
The median wait for an ultrasound was 3.6 weeks; for computed tomography (a CT scan) it was 5.5 weeks; and for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) it was 12.7 weeks.
The specialists interviewed for the survey were also asked what they regarded as clinically "reasonable" waiting times. They responded that actual waiting time exceeded reasonable waiting time in 92 per cent of the comparisons.
Graham said the survey shows that the "federal and provincial governments are still failing to act in the face of international evidence that increasing patient options for private care reduces waiting times. "
However, any trend towards privatizing health care was blasted by Roy Romanow, Saskatchewan's former NDP premier, in his royal commission report on the future of health care in Canada.
The Fraser Institute isn't the first to put its finger on the unacceptably long waiting times for medical care, said Michael Decter, a former Ontario deputy health minister who's now with the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
However, Decter said he doubts it's possible to solve the waiting-time dilemma quickly, because one key is to boost the number of health-care professionals like nurses and doctors.
"I'm not sure creating more private clinics would solve the problem at all, let me be clear on that," said Decter, who had no involvement in the Fraser survey.
"The real issue is making some investments in capacity (medical personnel). But you don't produce a doctor or nurse overnight, so these (waiting-list) problems don't have instant solutions."
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