The Waiting Game
“...we’re in a failing system.”
In every rotation I've been through, everyone says the same thing: “we're in a failing system.” There’s so many patients and not enough beds and the way we provide cares is not meeting the demands that it needs to. In my family medicine rotation, we had a patient who had cancer. She was waiting for four months to get a scan or some sort of treatment. In the visit, she just broke down crying. She's like, “I don't know what to do anymore, I've been waiting for so long.” It was like really heartbreaking. I feel like I saw that a lot during my clerkship rotation.
A lot of people just get referred and then referred to some somebody else, and then they wait and wait, and don't really ever see the care that they need. It feels like a lot of medicine in Canada is just a waiting game. It made me think about how my parents. They're getting old too and are having health problems. My mom has high blood pressure and she has these times palpitations and her blood pressure will go up really high. A bunch of times, we have to drive to the emerg because we're worried. We'd be sitting there waiting for hours and hours because the emerg is crazy and you have to wait so long to get care. And then I think about the other patients that have to wait so much as well. It’s really sad.
How do you think this is going to impact you and the care that you provide to patients in the future?
On an individual level, when I'm seeing my patients, I'm going to try to see if I can do as much as I can and not having to make them wait. That's like wishful thinking like of course, and they're going to have to wait. I think it’s important to not do so many unnecessary referrals that are never going to happen. The way that we're currently doing things is not going to be sustainable in the future. I think Canada really needs a change in its healthcare. I don't know how it's going to come about, but I hope that I'll be able to play a part in it.