Remember Dalton McGuinty? He was the guy who wasn't going to raise your taxes. Well, except for when he did... like the OHIP "health care premium."
So what has he done with his "it's not a tax" premium. He hasn't improved diagnostic medicine... that's for sure.
As of Oct. 31, 408 Ontario patients had obtained PET scans through the registry and 926 patients had scans as part of the clinical trials.Never mind patient access... doctors have to be sent outside the country, just to be trained on the potentially life-saving machines.
Quebec provides the broadest access to PET machines; this year, it plans to do 21,000 scans. Patients can access PET scans in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and New Brunswick.
Yesterday, Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer called the relocation of nuclear-medicine residents an "embarrassment." She said she is concerned they may not return to Ontario.MEMORY LANE UPDATE: Hmmmm... sounds familiar...
So... twenty months and 2 million privately raised dollars later, the McGuinty Liberals have yet to get back to the hospital board about this lifesaving piece of equipment.
The Chief of Staff, Dr. Barry Guppy has another concern.
Guppy said the hospital needs at least two radiologists to clear a backlog of people waiting for MRI or CT scans. Non-urgent cases have had to go to hospitals like Cobourg and Kingston to have the scans done.
Technorati Tags: George Smitherman, Dalton McGuinty, Liberal Party
