We still have to aim higher than simply "it's free".

Over here in Montreal my GF and I have been waiting for a family doctor for already 3.5 years (took us just 1 month to get one back in Winnipeg).
The one time we had to go to ER, for a snowboarding head blow with concussion symptoms, we had to wait 13 hours on a quiet night because the night shift had only 1 doctor, in Montreal's 2nd most central hospital (Notre Dame). In fact, on average 12 percent of all ER visits in the Grand Montreal area end up leaving in frustration without being seen by a doctor.

Adding to the ER burden, walk in clinics no longer exist; you gotta use an online appointment finder, and finding an appointment often involves clicking on the search button for over 1 hour, fighting for elusive cancellations with many other people in the same situation.

Many countries have proven socialized healthcare can work very well. Spain, Israel, Italy, Germany among them. We gotta compare ourselves to them, no the US.

Some years ago we were able to get a family doctor who had her own little walk-in clinic. The waiting room always had some patients in it, but she would see you within an hour.

Since the pandemic the clinic is mostly empty because she no longer accepts walk-ins and even patients in her roster must get a telephone appointment first before even having the possibility of meeting her in person. And when you have an in-person appointment it only takes a day or two and when you arrive you can see that there are no patients before or after you -- she must be seeing very few people per day.

Her case isn't unique. It is difficult to find walk-in clinics anymore, and family doctors accepting new patients were already unicorns before the pandemic. Why is this happening? What sort of incentives and disincentives in the system turned regular doctors into hermits that do a fraction of the work they used to? Large swaths of the population are not receiving any medical care at all and we are considering to move out of the country.

Maybe if the US didn't poach most of our talent 🤷‍♀️

[It's] getting harder to get [a] timely appointment from recent years['] development in BC.

P A N D E M I C

The pandemic is only the largest blow to a system in need of shoring up already.

We should definitely expect issues and delays over and above the norm for years. Improving our system will help, but a global lethal pandemic and the impact on our healthcare system - even if we didn't have angry indolents not doing the barest of minimal work to limit the effects - needs to be accounted for.

At my local walkin clinic in north Burnaby I can usually book a same day appointment. But you have to be on the ball loading the web page on the morning open, and it can take a couple days. The demand definitely is high.