A Usenet persona calling itself Paul Skoczylas wrote:

I should know better than to get involved...

.....but you just can't help yourself...

Don't apologize, it's okay to admit your an addict.


"Scott Weiser" wrote:


From your analysis, could I, however, walk from one hospital in Toronto
to another to improve my position?

I doubt it. It's my guess that once you get assigned a priority, based on
the government-mandated priority criteria, you're stuck with it, and no
matter where you go, you end up behind others with higher priority. That a
different facility may not have the same number of people in line before you
is irrelevant. Moreover, I have my doubts that you would be allowed, once
assigned a priority at a hospital in your local community, to simply "venue
shop" in another city, thereby jumping the queue of those above you in your
original community. However, this is a guess, and I could be wrong.

You are wrong.

The number of people in front of you does matter. There is no
"government-assigned" priority. Each hospital that you venue shop
into rates your priority and serves you as they can, with those they feel are
more in need of treatment first. If you leave one
hospital after being told your wait will be X hours, and go to another
hospital, a nurse or doctor there might think you've got
something more serious than the person who triaged you in the first hospital,
you'll get a different priority. But even if they
give you the same priority, if the second hospital has fewer people lined up
in front of you with equal or greater priority, you'll
get helped sooner.

But, each hospital is required to abide by the prioritization guidelines set
by the government, are they not? Thus, there is still a
government-controlled priority list. Parse it any way you please, but if the
government IN ANY WAY sets policy for admitting or serving patients, even in
a general guidelines document or by so much as saying something to the
effect of "doctors shall treat patients according to the priority of the
illness", as to what the priority of treatment is, the whole system is
"government controlled."

A relative was driving long distance to a family function last week. He
decided to seek treatment for an infection on the way at
the hospital in Clearwater BC. He was in and out in under an hour. Arriving
at the family function he commented on that, and
another relative, who lives in Kamloops BC, a decent sized city about an
hour's drive from Clearwater, said that people in Kamloops
would often drive to Clearwater to go to the hospital (for minor emergency
room treatment), knowing that the two hour round trip dri
ve would save them more time than that waiting in the Kamloops emergency room.

For certain specialized treatments (available only at certain hospitals), you
are closer to being correct. But for minor, routine
stuff, you can "venue shop" all you want to try to find the shortest wait
time.

But you still get prioritized based on government standards, no matter what.
The hospital administrator is not legally free to decide to admit you for an
infected hangnail if there is anyone of higher priority in line in front of
you, right? Government control, pure and simple.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser