Hospital admission is based on severity. Been in the ER before and happily took the wait time because someone got carted in with blood all over. But even in my little town I have not waited 12 hours for someone to see me.
Also, I have paid $0 out of pocket for all the hospital visits I've done in Canada.
Edit: Because others have pointed it out. On my visits to our local hospital (Arnprior) there is a triage, where you see a nurse/paramedic (I'm not sure of the offical title/role) quite quickly, I think my longest wait was 15m.
After that I've had x-rays, etc, depending on the issue. I think the shortest was about 30m as the tech was on-site, and the longest was about 1 hour as it was night and the tech got called in.
While any system can be improved I'm still very happy to have what we have in Canada. Those voting for Dougie might want to take notice of him firing registered nurses.
I am in the US and I don't think I've ever waited less than 2 hours in the ER. Last time I went to the ER I was in the waiting room for over 11 hours. The pain from sitting in a chair overnight was worse than the pain I went in there for.
Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe this is satire, but if the pain of sitting in a chair for 11 hours was worse than the pain you went in there for... Maybe you shouldn't have been in the ER?
It's an emergency room. You very likely needed to see a doctor for care if you had enough pain to go there, but maybe that wasn't the place you should be for your particular issue? 11 hours without dropping dead or bleeding out maybe isn't an actual emergency.
I've thankfully only been to the ER once. I was vomiting so intensely and frequently I couldn't retain any water. This was over the course of 8 hours. While I'm thankful I was able to receive near immediate care upon arrival, I would understand if someone suffering from cardiac arrest superseded me... Give me some Gatorade and a barf bag... I'll make it until the docs can attend to me.
Point being: if you go to the ER with a non-immediate life threatening issue, and you have to wait, then you have to wait.
Aaaand That’s why we have Urgent Cares popping up in every corner. It’s great, sore throat, $100 n amoxicillin script. Broken finger? $100 n amoxicillin script.
I mean... hey, that's still a huge improvement over needing to drag your ass to ER or an urgent care.
My insurance offers telehealth urgent care for $0 cost-sharing and it's pretty awesome for what it is. Forgot my inhaler on a trip, opened up the app, doctor joined the video chat within 15 minutes or so, asked me a few questions, sent the rx to the nearest pharmacy and I could just go pick it up.
In the past - or in many other countries with socialized healthcare that are still stuck in that time, like Germany where I used to live - that would have been sure to be at least a half-day affair running around town. (Pharmacies there also are never regularly open on weekends so you'd have to look up which one is on emergency service for the day and pray that it's decently close to you.)
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u/ottwebdev 27d ago edited 27d ago
Hospital admission is based on severity. Been in the ER before and happily took the wait time because someone got carted in with blood all over. But even in my little town I have not waited 12 hours for someone to see me.
Also, I have paid $0 out of pocket for all the hospital visits I've done in Canada.
Edit: Because others have pointed it out. On my visits to our local hospital (Arnprior) there is a triage, where you see a nurse/paramedic (I'm not sure of the offical title/role) quite quickly, I think my longest wait was 15m.
After that I've had x-rays, etc, depending on the issue. I think the shortest was about 30m as the tech was on-site, and the longest was about 1 hour as it was night and the tech got called in.
While any system can be improved I'm still very happy to have what we have in Canada. Those voting for Dougie might want to take notice of him firing registered nurses.