Quote:
Originally Posted by daveyn
not exactly correct, those in the queue who can't afford it continue to be bumped down in the queue by paying clients from other jurisdictions who come to Alberta and are done on a priority basis because it a bigger payday for the surgeon. Not a win win. Surgeon wins, paying customer from elsewhere wins, Alberta resident without resources continues to wait.
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You are COMPLETELY wrong about that. I checked this out quite extensively. The major issue is not surgeon time or capacity. The big problem is lack of OR time, OR nurses as well as lack of recovery room and post operative capacity. The doctor that just did my surgery does dozens of private surgeries a week out of a private facility, between the few public paid surgeries he can do a week. It takes him about an hour per hip, hour and a half per knee. If he had access to OR time and recovery facilities he would do a ton more public surgery. There is a very god reason the private clincs have their own ORs, recovery rooms nurses, orderlies and physio staff. About half the staff i interacted with wwork full time in the puvlic system and part time at the privare facilty. Only a few were fuull time private only, and none of them were doxtors. The money is a bit better on the private side but that is not his main motivation.
The guys paying for their own work are definitely clearing space in line for others. The specialist consult time that came up for me in Nov this year, after 1 and a half years in the queue, which I bypassed by going private and got a private consult 4 weeks after I asked for one, went immediately to the next guy in line. I left my name on the list just to see how long it would take. I could have actually had the surgery privately 3 weeks after the consult but for my own reasons chose to wait 14 months. Big difference between choosing to wait and having no option but to wait 2 to 3 years. Especially went public is paying not a lot less than the private cost.
Coming home today, after surgery on the 29th. Still almost zero pain and someone esle will get surgery a whole bunch sooner on top of it.