The Written Word
for May 16, 2001

We have, we’re told, a public health care system. It is a compulsory system where, with some exceptions, one must go to the doctor or get one’s operation under the Medical Services Plan. There are some exceptions such as eye surgery and plastic surgery but by and large if you need an operation, your family doctor makes an appointment for you with a surgeon who, unless the matter is an emergency, then puts you on his list and operates on you in due course.

Back surgery is, for the most part what is called elective surgery which is to say that no matter how much pain you’re in, you must start at the back of the queue and wait your turn. Unless, that is, your name is Daniel Sedin and you play for the Vancouver Canucks. In that case you are operated on within a week of being diagnosed.

How can this be?

Well, it is.

The Vancouver Canucks say they pay for this themselves but that’s no answer. Lots of people would pay for operations themselves if it meant getting to the front of the lineup. I have a friend who has been waiting for six months for similar back surgery to that performed on Sedin and he is told it will be at least three months more.

You see, there is a two tiered system here and hockey players are only one of the beneficiaries. If you are a workers compensation case and an operation will get you back to work, it’s to the front of the queue for you. The argument is that the taxpayer and the employer save money if the injured worker is back to work as soon as possible, And who can argue with that? The trouble is, the argument is just as valid for the person not on Workers’ Compensation. An office worker who hurts his hack, let’s say playing hockey, is just as much off work as the WCB case. The government loses taxes just the same and the burden on his family is just the same.

Into all this are anomalies. You, J.Q. Citizen, not being a professional football or hockey player, cannot arrange private surgery and pay for it yourself – unless … unless, for example it’s eye surgery. Then you can pay about $1600 an eye and have it done privately – and right now!. You can, if you wish, wait for nine months by doing it under the medical Services Plan but you may well be on a bit in years and not want to wait.

But surely the question arises, why eyes? The problem usually is cataracts so you’re neither blind or in any pain. And, if the diagnosis is early enough – which it usually is – you can make do until an interval of say 9 months until you reach the head of the public line-up. But with a back, you can be in excruciating agony, be unable to work or even enjoy yourself. With the cataract you can pay and have the operation in a week but with a back – again unless you are a professional football or hockey player, or a WCB patient - you cannot have it done privately, period.

Moreover, there is a great deal of private surgery done on Canadians for a fee – and it’s all done south of the border, So money that would normally go into the Canadian system and be circulated in Canada goes to pay American taxes and supports their non system.

Former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow is doing an inquiry into medicare – I hope he doesn’t start with the absurd notion that there isn’t a two tiered system already in place. Such a notion can readily disposed of with a quick call to the Vancouver Canucks.