While that’s not to say a person going to a hospital or medical clinic is not going to have to wait hours to get to see a doctor, in its report “Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada 2013,” the Canadian Institute for Health Information praised the province for improvements in patients being more likely to get surgeries in the recommended timeframe.
Back in 2004 the provinces committed to reducing waits in five priority areas and set benchmarks for radiation therapy, cardiac bypass surgery, hip and knee replacements, hip fracture repair and cataract surgery.
These were all important some wait times were appalling, especially for people in places outside the Avalon Peninsula.
Considering the aging population and the fact that the baby boomers are getting of age now, such surgeries are commonplace and the needs for all of them were necessary even back after the turn of the century.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information noted Newfoundland and Labrador is one of only two provinces that shared improvement over three years in meeting key joint replacement benchmarks.
Residents of the province need to hope that despite budget challenges brought on by a reduction in oil royalties that the wait times in these key areas of health will not be affected.
The generation of baby boomers is still here, and those are the same people who helped this province through some tough times. They deserve whatever help that can be provided, especially now that they are reaching their time of need.
Despite a looming change in the economic picture for this province, now is not the time to return to an era when a person wondered if his or her life was in jeopardy because of extended waits.
