The recent debacle over MRIs done in public hospitals has ended with the private operators being kicked out.
The health minister launched a probe into the issue too.
This is a perfect example of "Create the Problem, Offer the Solution"
- read on.
What is NUTS is that it took a patient to raise concerns over what she felt SHE was doing - queue-jumping. Her conscience took hold and she said Hey Wait a minute - aren't I jumping in front of others just because I waved some cash around? Any nurse could have raised this flag, and the health minister must have known about it before this.
And its true - she was in the Public St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver and she was paying a private clinic to do the same job on the same machine that she would have had to wait for 3 more painfull months to get done on the public [free] waiting list.
"People without money have to wait, for $3000 you can get it now."
The nurse on duty was the one that told her that.
So there is no doubt - we are doing it.
Ok, we knew that we were doing it - letting the wealthy get care while the poor suffer.
It is the accepted arrangement of renting out the MRI machine and the space after hours to private medical services providers, which will raise some money for the hospital while the MRI would otherwise be sitting unused.
With the long waiting lists, and the recent government initiative to reduce those waits, the obvious and simple solution would be for St.Pauls to hire one or two more shifts of staff to run that machine all night to serve that public waiting list.
Maybe there are problems with staffing it in the public system? or that paying out overtime makes it too expensive? None of those practical reasons or any other was offered by the minister of health or the private operator. They only had some cliches and rhetoric to say: "the government will end up spending more tax dollars if it prevents St. Paul’s from allowing private patients to pay to use public equipment. " [but didn't say how or why]
Create the Problem and then Offer the Solution is the theme here. Have you heard of it? Its everywhere you look, if you look. The government underfunds the public system to CREATE long waiting lists, and the offers the SOLUTION of "Pay the private operators for it".
http://tinyurl.com/gcl6g
The health minister launched a probe into the issue too.
This is a perfect example of "Create the Problem, Offer the Solution"
- read on.
What is NUTS is that it took a patient to raise concerns over what she felt SHE was doing - queue-jumping. Her conscience took hold and she said Hey Wait a minute - aren't I jumping in front of others just because I waved some cash around? Any nurse could have raised this flag, and the health minister must have known about it before this.
And its true - she was in the Public St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver and she was paying a private clinic to do the same job on the same machine that she would have had to wait for 3 more painfull months to get done on the public [free] waiting list.
"People without money have to wait, for $3000 you can get it now."
The nurse on duty was the one that told her that.
So there is no doubt - we are doing it.
Ok, we knew that we were doing it - letting the wealthy get care while the poor suffer.
It is the accepted arrangement of renting out the MRI machine and the space after hours to private medical services providers, which will raise some money for the hospital while the MRI would otherwise be sitting unused.
With the long waiting lists, and the recent government initiative to reduce those waits, the obvious and simple solution would be for St.Pauls to hire one or two more shifts of staff to run that machine all night to serve that public waiting list.
Maybe there are problems with staffing it in the public system? or that paying out overtime makes it too expensive? None of those practical reasons or any other was offered by the minister of health or the private operator. They only had some cliches and rhetoric to say: "the government will end up spending more tax dollars if it prevents St. Paul’s from allowing private patients to pay to use public equipment. " [but didn't say how or why]
Create the Problem and then Offer the Solution is the theme here. Have you heard of it? Its everywhere you look, if you look. The government underfunds the public system to CREATE long waiting lists, and the offers the SOLUTION of "Pay the private operators for it".
http://tinyurl.com/gcl6g
.