she copes with splitting abdominal pain and bone fractures, which have led her to develop depression. it’s got so bad that she’s actively considering assisted suicide.
with stories like this, one would think the government would be concerned with tracking or analyzing patient suffering during wait times and identifying problem areas.
you’d be wrong to assume that.
secondstreet.org’s latest policy brief explores this issue in further detail. we filed freedom of information requests with every provincial government, asking them to provide any memos, analysis or reports on patient suffering while waiting long periods for surgery and other health services.
not a single province provided any documents, including saskatchewan. this province said those documents do not exist. how is it possible to address the problem if you’re not even talking about it?
one option would be for governments to survey patients from time to time to ask what they’re experiencing. if, for example, they’ve been suffering from depression, the government could, perhaps, offer counselling and other mental health services.
but that doesn’t address the fundamental problem of waitlists. the moe government has made some positive steps on health reform. for instance, last summer, premier scott moe committed to contracting out more taxpayer-funded surgeries to private providers, to help reduce the surgical backlog.