A couple of years ago, my knee started to lock up on me. It turned out to be a torn cartilage, which required arthroscopic surgery. The operation was performed in what seemed to be an office building in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto.
That's right... not a hospital.
When you walked, or like myself, limped into this place, it wasn't immediately evident that it was a medical facility. Turns out they had their surgical suites down the hall.
That's why this particular piece caught my attention.
Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said the government will not consider contracting out knee-replacement operations to a private Toronto hospital.Now I don't know if this is the same outfit I went to... but that's precisely the point.
The moneyed would not be able to jump the queue, and patients wouldn't notice any difference from the public hospital system, Brenda Rasmussen, chief executive officer of Alegro Health Corp., parent of Don Mills Surgical, has said.It was totally transparent to me, as a patient.
If anything, this clinic was clearly a much more tightly run operation than any hospital I had ever been to. There was no sitting around for hours in a big room with very sick people and endless red tape.
More importantly, they fixed my knee.
Quickly. Completely.
The Ontario Health Minister is simply playing political games here, with, for the most part, elderly people's lives... that is to say your parents -- and some day... you.
If this company can offer faster and comparably effective surgery for joint replacements... and get some of these unfortunates back out into society in less than a year, he has an obligation to look into it.
Instead of playing games.
FROM THE COMMENTS:
"Equitable suffering is the goal of Canada's 'health care' system..."UPDATE: More Smitherman nonsense
Instead of providing a sufficiency of doctors, the latest Liberal solution is to make up a job description and fill the positions with sorta-doctors.
What's next... medical cross training for the janitorial staff?
-- TORONTO -- The province is creating two new health care jobs to reduce surgical wait times caused by shortage of anesthesiologists, Health Minister George Smitherman said in a release Saturday.Yeah... you first Georgie.
The two new roles of anesthesia assistants and nurse practitioners-anesthesia, a role open to registered nurses who pursue this specialized degree, will be teamed with a lead anesthesiologist to make up the anesthesia care teams.
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