I don't need a knee surgery. I had shoulder surgery and we examined (and rejected) back surgery. Neither the hospital nor the surgeon were impediments to my treatment but my GP was and the GP is the gate-keeper to every other level of treatment in the Canadian system ( At least, we get to choose our GP. In the British NSA system, you are assigned a GP, who might be brilliant or who might be still using leeches).
Anyway, I had a substantially damaged shoulder from an accident that had whole muscle severed in two and a major tendon pulling off the bone. Is spite of initial ultrasound imaging (that was immediate) that told the story precisely right as it turned out, the Doc said to the effect of "Everyone has a bad shoulder. Just dangle your arm THIS way and here's a prescription for Physio." The Physiotherapist picked up right away that a lifetime of physio was not going to repair a muscle torn in two. When I finally got the GP to take another look, he reluctantly got me an MRI within days of my asking. When they saw the imaging, I went right to the top of the surgeon's schedule (she's a diminutive powerhouse that fixes the broken Toronto Argonauts) and I was under the knife in ten days.
So, there was zero issue about the availability of MRIs or surgical resources. The Canadian Health System problem that I encountered was that the GP saw himself as the guardian of the public purse and,at first, obstructed doing the science that was required to save the Province money. He is not a young doctor so that tells me that he has had decades of spurious health claims in front of him, all demancing SERVICE!! ... but I have never been one of those and he takes me seriously, now.
