Surprise: when you cut and defund a service, and drive away the front line workers, then that service deteriorates.

The real question is: was it intentional (to promote privatization), was it incompetence, or was it apathy?

Funny as my wife has had to wait months for a specialist and we are in the US. She is lucky that she had a cancer that would kill her in two months that only needed surgery to treat.

Just to note, these people are well off. If it was someone that doesn't have $12,862 (or the equity/credit score to take out a large loan) to pay for surgery in another country (with a working medical system), then they'll die of being poor, and I'm sure many people have already.

so, i don't know much about the whole pipeline issue. seem like this woulda been a neat place to put that money though.

ok well, maybe next time the money could go to the people that keep us healthy. as much as the general well-being of the entire nation is not a thing to prioritize when compared to the important things, like fossil fuel subsidies.

or bailouts.

maybe i'm just an idiot, but it seems kinda fucked up.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Ducluzeau eventually landed on the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., where she met with a specialist one week after sending the results of an imaging test that detects early signs of cancer.

With long wait times becoming a defining characteristic of Canada's health-care system, many Canadians are taking matters into their own hands by travelling outside of the country to get surgeries and other medical procedures done sooner.

Each province and territory is responsible for administrating and delivering health care to its residents, meaning the average wait times for surgeries and other procedures vary across the country.

Losing patience, Bukieda started looking for out-of-country options and found a clinic in Kaunas, Lithuania, that could take him in as soon as July, three months after his most recent X-rays.

Sarunas Tarasevicius, hip surgeon and head of orthopedics at Nordorthopaedics in Lithuania, said this is common; the quality of life of a patient worsens the longer they wait for surgery.

Part of that work has included dedicating a $2-billion fund for provinces and territories to address immediate pressures on the health-care system, such as in pediatric hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as long wait times for surgeries, the department said, citing an announcement made in July.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Yup, people in Quebec goes to Cuba for cancer treatment for instance. Dental to India or Mexico or some Slavic countries, etc

I'm just curious what they paid for these procedures.

We don't have the capacity to support enough residencies and our accreditation process is too convoluted to import foreign labour. These are both solvable problems, but only with the political will to do so.

Canadians need to be less afraid of having their jobs stolen by foreigners. As our population grows, we will need more of everything.