When I started my practice of internal medicine in Comox back in 1979, patients had better access to health care than they do now. Yes, medications, technology, and surgical procedures are all better now, but the suffering of patients waiting in long lines for help from our profession is much greater today. Not so long ago, my friend, a retired family practitioner, was suffering from a very painful hip problem. He was given a 3-year wait time, so he flew to Calgary to have the surgery in a private clinic. He could not have the surgery in Vancouver, because only privileged groups of patients can have a surgery in a private clinic in their own province. Quebec is the only province that has an exception to this rule. In 2005, Dr Jacques Chaoulli won this exception in the Supreme Court of Canada, saving patients in Quebec from this nonsensical system.

Our present health care system is in a straitjacket of left-wing politics and an overgrown bureaucracy. Who is speaking for patients today? It used to be doctors, but since the departure of Dr Brian Day from the BCMJ, I see nothing in it on the topic of the present health care crisis.
—J.J. Simice, MD, FRCPC
Comox

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