Friday, July 23, 2004

Well, du-uh!

Waits for emergency room tests longest on weekends
Sometimes I am surprised by what is "news" -- like this story -- didn't everyone already know this? Perhaps we lacked the statistics, but anyone with half a brain always knew that the worst time to get sick is on a weekend, likely followed closely by getting sick after midnight on a weeknight -- in particular, avoid emergency rooms on Friday and Saturday nights, when they are rockin' and rollin' with drunks and drug ODs, not to mention the weekend-warrior injuries (broken bones, etc, suffered by people doing sports and home repairs on the weekend).
A related story in this morning's Globe talked about how difficult it was going to be for Martin to reduce waiting lists. I think the solution for waiting lists is basically pretty simple -- double the number of specialists nationwide, and triple the hospital capacity for them to do their surgeries and other treatments. The trick will be whether Martin can force provincial governments to spend their health dollars on these priorities.

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