A Q for a smart Canadian, about healthcare

I posted this in another thread not to long ago...

I had appendicitis in early September, went to the hospital a day earlier and they thought it was gastroenteritis (food poisoning). They told me to come back if the pain started to localize on the right side. Sure enough when I woke up the next morning, the pain was pretty strong on my right side, I tried to stick it out, but after telling my dad, he took me to the hospital.

I waited for a while. First in the triage waiting room, then in the ER waiting room, after about 2-3 hours I got into the er where I got a bed. After waiting another six hours in the ER, with doctors coming in to check me out, see how I was doing and telling me that my surgery was coming up... I waited and waited for what seemed like forever. My gf came in half way thru so it wasn't so bad.

After waiting a little while longer, the door opened finally, with a doctor saying that my surgery had been postponed and that they were moving me up to the 10th floor of VGH. I continued to wait up there for another couple hours. After another round of painful questions from nurses (they must have filled out like 7 or 8 sets of 10 page packages of paper) they took me to pre-op.

I waited there for another 4 hours... saw some people that were definetly more in need of an OR then I was, but I was still quite annoyed at having to wait for so long, especially after being told multiple times that I was up next.

The wait was decently long, but its all based on the need of the patient... While I was in Pre-op, I saw another guy with appendicitis, he got wheeled in immediately, and he was in much much worse shape then I was. Looks like his had ruptured.

But again.... unless you are dual-citizen or something... concentrate on getting a fake citizenship and Care Card.

I tore my ACL this is how it went.

Went to see doctor the next day, thought it was Partial MCL tear. Said if it didn't get better in 1-2 weeks to come back to get a better examination when swelling was less.

2 weeks later, no better, saw a specialist who thought it was meniscus and told me to get an MRI.

Here, I either could have waited a few weeks - month or two for an MRI at a hospital. They give out time slots in order of urgency and knees are not very urgent. But my parents had extra health insurence plan on top of government plan so I went to a private clinic 2 days later to get it which was covered under this my parents insurace.

Got results a week later and they knew it was ACL. Got a surgury date about a month later. This time can vary depending on your hospital, specialist and how busy they are. I know people that have waited a few months.

Had my surgury. Physio was covered by government as long as I went to get it at the hospital. They cover physio here too, if it is needed. AKA suberban soccer moms who go to because their wrists hurt are not covered. It is meant for people recovering for major suguries.

But, the hospital was an hour each way, and that added up to a lot for me, so I went to a physio center near my house which was again covered by my parents private insurance and not governemnent cause it wasn't at the hospital.

If you need medical care you will never get turned away. But for things that are not urgent like elective surguries you can wait a long time going from specialist to specialist and waiting for MRIs, and operating rooms... That is really the only downside.

There is both a public and private system

Private sector is still pretty small. No such thing as private hospitals, just clinics They are usually geared towards getting care for elective stuff faster. They are not legally allow to do all medical procedures. They don't have ERs. If you want care from these either you pay out of pocket or on an additional health insurace plan. I guess kind of like a US system, just only for elective stuff and a lot smaller.