Posted on 01/26/2014 12:25:19 PM PST by Innovative
Wait times for cataract surgery in London jumped 50% last year, a disturbing trend officials expect will worsen unless Ontario’s health ministry restores funding.
At the start of 2013, 90% of patients had surgery within 153 days. By November, that wait grew to 230 days.
“It’s hurting patients,” said ophthalmologist Tim Hillson, chairperson of the Eye Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.
Patients forced to wait are at greater risk for falls, car crashes and depression, preventable calamities that cost our health-care system more in the long run, Hillson said, so making them wait longer is short-sighted.
(Excerpt) Read more at lfpress.com ...
A preview of Obamacare...
This is Canada, not the UK (London, Ontario).
Thanks — but the principle is the same, socialized medicine results in unreasonable wait times for patients.
“It used to be 5 MONTHS, now it’s almost A YEAR!!!
A preview of Obamacare”
i’d gladly wait a year as long as obamacare helps the unfortunate welfare moms and illegals get free care.
My aunt was a retired school teacher in Sweden. She got cataracts and was almost blind. She got on the wait list and they kept backing it off and backing it off. Finally a nurse told her that because she was a retired woman that her priority was so low that she’d never get the operation. After that she got depressed and died. (So, they saved a lot of money there.)
This is how socialized medicine is intended to work.
Good point. Seeing it published in the London Free Press, I too came away with the idea it was taking place in the British health care system.
Once again, another negative of Canada’s health care system.
“Finally a nurse told her that because she was a retired woman that her priority was so low that she’d never get the operation. After that she got depressed and died. (So, they saved a lot of money there.)
This is how socialized medicine is intended to work.”
Sad, but true. Most people here have no idea, they think they will get immediate Cadillac care for nothing and by the time they will figure it out, it will be too late, the system will be too entrenched to change it.
Funding wouldn’t hurt wait times if a free market system was in place. A free market would have just added more staff, thus more profit. It would have been a win for the patient, a win for the practice and a win for the guy that got hired.
That’s right...
Sure, that's a great system for the 5% of patients who can afford to pay cash for everything.
In 2012, in this country, it took a week for pre-surgery check up, set up appt. at surgery room, and the first eye was done. As soon as that eye recovered a bit, the second one was done. Couldn’t have been arranged any faster than it was.
In the future here, it would be a good thing to have your doctor as a friend.
I had to wait a whole week.
I not only got my cataract surgery promptly but I was willing to pay more for special inserts. I’m not sure now that the inserts were worth it but point is I had choices.
A free market solution would cause lower prices in order to remain be competitive.
“Sure, that’s a great system for the 5% of patients who can afford to pay cash for everything”
You didn’t take into account private insurance.
“i’d gladly wait a year as long as obamacare helps the unfortunate welfare moms and illegals get free care.”
I wouldn’t wait one second for some welfare leach!!
Like everyone can afford private insurance. Do you not realize that's how we got into this Obamacare mess?
That blue-sky theory most certainly does not work with medical devices (lens implants in this case). Show me one single product where it did anywhere in the last 30 years. Not just anyone can set up a medical device factory on every corner in every town (although Ayn would like to think so). You'll also find a pretty hard floor on the lower wage an ophthalmic surgeon with $300,000 in student loans is willing to earn.
And your solution is?
The free market has not been allowed to exist since the time people stopped paying for their medical treatments directly.
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