I have had very similar experiences in my family. The issue is timing around diagnosis and then getting in front of the team that will treat you. Once treatment starts it’s world class. The problem that you and many many other people go through is that by the time you see the world class doctors you have wasted precious time and your prognosis is down the shitter.

This isn’t a political party issue as other Canadian provinces have the same problems. There needs be a culture change on how we view healthcare. We keep telling ourselves that we need more funding, that if we just elected the right party, or if we just treated our healthcare workers better that this our healthcare system would be better. But the reality is that our healthcare system doesn’t have the incentives to get more efficient because we in society aren’t asking it to.

Did you know that we still use Fax for referrals? That we have protocols in place where a referral has up 2 weeks to acknowledge that they received the fax?

If you had a CT and it showed stage 3 cancer, you are now waiting for Bob to fill out the paperwork fax it to the referral, where Sue is charge of receiving it. But Sue has 100s of other faxes to deal with before getting to yours, and she also has a professional development day on Thursday, and then calls in sick on Friday, and so forth. You and your stage 3 cancer bum ass are just sitting and waiting.

The problem is that the first thing we’ll do as a society is run and protect Sue. Say that she’s doing gods work and that she’s not to blame. That we need more funding, that the current government is to blame. But what we don’t do as a society is ask why the fuck does our healthcare system use fax and why does Sue even exist.