Upcoming surgery

[Blaithin]

Blaithin, ironically I bet I could see a vet sooner than my doctor.

Depends on the vet here. One of mine is weeks out, partly why I have a small collection of different ones I use Hah

That said I was looking to get a doctor because I’ve never had one as an adult (whoops….). Was around a month to get in for a meet and greet and then probably another month before she would be able to do a physical. She failed the meet and greet though so I’m just back to being a slack with no doctor.

[farmaholic]

Depends on the vet here. One of mine is weeks out, partly why I have a small collection of different ones I use Hah

That said I was looking to get a doctor because I’ve never had one as an adult (whoops….). Was around a month to get in for a meet and greet and then probably another month before she would be able to do a physical. She failed the meet and greet though so I’m just back to being a slack with no doctor.

I'm not a gynecologist but I'm willing to take a look
(that could be my last post)

[Landdownunder]

So you dont have whats called here duty doctor? I can go to local clinic ask to see one off 4 GPs which ever doctors are on duty usually wait for 45 to 60 minutes and one off four doctors will see me for a consult? Clinic I go to at a guess would have a dozen doctors on 8 by appointment 4 by cue up and wait pot luck who ya get

[Blaithin]

So you dont have whats called here duty doctor? I can go to local clinic ask to see one off 4 GPs which ever doctors are on duty usually wait for 45 to 60 minutes and one off four doctors will see me for a consult? Clinic I go to at a guess would have a dozen doctors on 8 by appointment 4 by cue up and wait pot luck who ya get

Yeah if I’ve got an issue I can do a walk in or make an appointment and get luck of the draw. That’s how I’ve plugged along adulting for the three times I’ve needed a doctor.

But they want you to have a “family doctor” who is kind of the primary and knows your file instead of just whoever random gets you as a walk in.

[chuckChuck]

For profit private healthcare clinics are not increasing the number of surgeries or reducing wait times.

They are moving public resources to for profit clinics. The equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.

The problem is the demographic of the baby boomers and chronic underfunding.

Put enough resources in the public system to do more surgeries.


Nov 15, 2025, 07:18

Alberta public health system losing staff, funding as province increases spending on private facilities

Alanna Smith
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-public-health-system-losing-staff-funding-as-province/[/url]

Alberta expands use of private surgical centres in bid to shorten procedure wait-lists
Matthew Scace

[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-private-surgical-centres-danielle-smith-wait-lists/[/url]??

[chuckChuck]

Anesthesiologists in Calgary are being scheduled by senior Alberta health managers, in response to government directives, to work in CSFs, sometimes against their will.

• Anesthesiologists, and in some cases surgeons, have been preferentially assigned to work in chartered surgical facilities over public hospitals, including in response to political influence exerted by CSF owners.
• The government has ignored repeated warnings, based on data, that the rapid expansion of surgeries in CSFs has been increasing wait times in public hospitals for critical surgeries including lung, prostate and colorectal cancer, and children’s organ transplants.
• The government refused to pause the expansion of private surgeries despite being shown evidence they were neither saving money nor significantly reducing wait times. Instead, the government continues to take money out of the public system to fund the expansion of private surgeries.

“There is an anesthesiology shortage,” said one former senior health executive who had urged the prioritization of critical surgeries.

“But they [the UCP government] did not want to slow down the volume of surgeries in CSFs, and the problem just got worse.”

While some wait-lists for simple surgeries have been marginally reduced, sources say, others for complicated surgeries, including for cancer, have been increased.

“Alberta Health didn’t seem to care who gets surgery,” said Dr. Braden Manns, a former vice-president of Alberta Health Services, or AHS. “They care about how many surgeries get done in a year.”
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[url]https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/11/17/Alberta-For-Profit-Surgery-Push-Failing/[/url]

[chuckChuck]

Alberta public health system losing staff, funding, spending on private facilities

Nov 15, 2025, 07:18


Here are the facts from the Parkland Institute Study that clearly show private clinics in Alberta are not working to improve wait times across the whole system of care!

Alberta public health system losing staff, funding as province increases spending on private facilities

Alanna Smith
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-public-health-system-losing-staff-funding-as-province/[/url]

Private surgical facilities in Alberta are starving the public system of staff and funding to perform priority procedures, according to a new report that concludes the province has yet to increase surgical capacity or reduce wait times as pledged.

The 20-page analysis, published Wednesday by the Parkland Institute, showed provincial spending on private surgical facilities increased nearly three-fold to $55.8-million in 2023-24 from $20-million in 2019-20. By comparison, spending in public facilities increased marginally.

During the same time period, the average cost of outsourced procedures nearly doubled, while wait times jumped for priority procedures, such as cancer surgeries, which are only performed in the public system. In all, roughly 16,500 more procedures were performed over those five years in Alberta, but the increase was “exclusively” in private facilities.

“For-profit providers are being paid inflated prices to deliver the easiest, most profitable procedures at the expense of our public hospitals,” said Andrew Longhurst, a health policy researcher and the report’s author, in an interview.

“The consequence to that is what we’re seeing in cancer surgical care. You’re seeing those wait times balloon … and they have very real effects on people’s lives.”

The Alberta government has been under fire over its deals for chartered surgical facilities (CSFs) since The Globe and Mail reported ([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-ousted-health-services-ceo-amid-probe-into-medical-contracts/[/url]) allegations, now contained in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit, of government interference into health contracts last month. Athana Mentzelopoulos, the former chief executive of Alberta Health Services (AHS), alleges she faced political pressure to sign inflated contracts for CSFs.

CSFs are privately-owned centres where surgeons perform operations paid for by the public health care system. Two private facilities at the centre of Ms. Mentzelopoulos’s allegations were negotiating rates more than double what a competitor was charged, The Globe previously revealed ([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-surgical-companies-with-contracts-under-scrutiny-linked-to/[/url]) after obtaining an AHS pricing document. The price comparison also showed that the proposed fees surpassed what it cost AHS to perform the same surgeries.

The United Conservative government has argued that private facilities add capacity and can help reduce wait times. Critics say CSFs can play a role in surgical care but run the risk of scraping crucial resources, such as anesthesiologists, from the public system.

Mr. Longhurst noted in his report that the public and private facilities are pulling from the same limited staffing pool. He said most public operating rooms in Alberta are not currently funded and staffed to perform surgeries during evenings or weekends.

“Paying for-profit providers a premium rate simply diverts staff from hospitals to the for-profit sector,” he said.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange, in a statement on Wednesday, dismissed the report.

“The use of chartered surgical facilities has played a key role in reducing wait times and improving patient care, yet these successes are often dismissed or downplayed in favor of an ideological stance that does not reflect the actual progress we’ve made,” she said.

The UCP government, under former premier Jason Kenney, announced the Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI) in December, 2019. The aim was to meet wait-time targets and fund an additional 80,000 surgeries over four years by expanding contracts with private facilities. The UCP said it wanted independent providers to perform 30 per cent of all procedures by 2023, double that of 2019.

That goal has not been reached. About 22 per cent of all surgeries performed in Alberta last year were scheduled in CSFs, according to government data. The provincial dashboard also shows that 42.5 per cent of patients are waiting for surgeries outside of the recommended target, as of February.

Mr. Longhurst’s report shows median wait times for nine of 11 priority procedures tracked by the Canadian Institute for Health Information have increased since ASI was introduced. Lung cancer patients in 2023 waited on average 31 days for surgery, up from 21 in 2019. Over the same period, wait times for breast cancer surgery rose to 22 days from 17.

There were also longer wait times for prostate, bladder and colorectal cancer surgeries. Cancer surgeries are performed exclusively in public hospitals.

Cataract and hip surgeries – both of which are partly outsourced to CSFs – were the only two procedures that saw median wait times decrease, by 31 per cent and 1 per cent. Knee replacements, one of the main procedures outsourced to private facilities, saw a 27-per-cent increase in wait times.

The report also highlights that government spending on private facilities outpaced funding for public operating rooms.

“Public hospitals have been put in the untenable position of serving a growing and aging population with fewer resources,” the report says. “While the Alberta government seems committed to deepening the role of investors in Alberta’s health system, this approach is proving costly for both the government and patients.”
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[Landdownunder]

Will try to find out suitable answers to questions when I get sliced open.

Guess from my Australian perspective private public can co exist private basically users pays as it should be via life long premiums.

Remember one time when I dislocated my shoulder was 7 hours before they put it in waiting around public hospital a few green whistles got me through, I rang private hospital where im "on the books" sure all you had to was call there emergency dept, after incident was 1.5 hours drive of course in car or ambulance we would have popped it back in straight away.

Some times things in life that are free actually aint, and many defenders of public health system dont actually use it have private health low life lying snakes some of them they squirm when they get found out meaning executives and govt people etc.

Enough on this topic all agree private is good if youve got spare cash to contribute, you guys just aint quite got the nuts and bolts of it worked out.

A thread that didnt get derailed. Hats off to you all have a top day

[LEP]

Friend of mine. Quite a nice guy, but a socialist through and through. But not an asshole like double chuck.

Had a heart problem, needed a procedure, went to a private clinic in Moose Jaw.

I said how does that work ? You are adamant that there be no private health care.

He turns alittle red and says it's different when it's your own problem.

[blackpowder]

My brother drives 350km from Edson to our town East of Camrose in order to see his GP.
No openings in Edson, nothing in Mayerthorpe, he gave up and now gets his scrips renewed and his tests get done.
Half the ortho replacements I'm aware of happen out of country.
I think we're all responsible for the debacle of where we are.
Total state control can only lead to ever more money as politicians are in charge.
All the funds in the world can't fix mismanagement.
We need to set ideology aside and work together. Conversations on this topic illustrate we have a long way to go. Ever higher costs and less service inevitably the future.
And for those on ignore.
I have yet to read any proposals, just calls for more money, no plan.
We're all responsible for where the conversation is at and where it goes.

No matter the system, we'd all use whatever influence we had to jump queue. And there will always be a queue or a better doctor.

And yes, it's great to learn other situations, thank you Landdown.