If we got CHIROPRACTIC TREATMENT covered by the province the emergency room load would be greatly reduced and the cost would be much lower.
In many cases the treatment would be more effective too.

The government subsidized Family Health Teams do not "allow" you to go to a walk in clinic that is not associated with their practice. If their office is closed you have to go to emergency to get the care you need. When I went with my parents to sign up with a doctor in a Family Health Team, they were told that if the office is closed they should go to Emergency not a walk in clinic.

I think the doctors get dinged if you don't go to their office and visit a clinic not associated with them. This kind of format does not allow patients to visit any type of healthcare setting which is convenient for them.

Should we not have a choice where we go for healthcare?

Hey Sky, You should check your facts before making ignorant comments. I am a Canadian trained doctor who now works in the US, only because there were NO JOBS available in my specialty in Canada, despite several studies showing a lack of surgeons in my area. Physician jobs in Canada are controlled by the government. And I make slightly LESS money in the US than I would in Canada. The riches of the US are an urban myth. If you think that the Canadian government doesn't control health care expenditures, at least in part, by controlling physician numbers, you are sadly misinformed. And remember that these expenditures are NOT mostly physician salaries, but rather the associated hospital costs.

he obiously was not getting the proper care with the doctor on staff and the proper tests were not done to stop the ongoing visits in the time span he haad to return.he was probably ignored and forgotten after they piled up with patients then his symptoms were off and on causing him to return so much in hopes he would get the full support he probably need for example i laid up in a emergency care dept for 12 hours and they said just keep going to the washroom in five different sample containers while my blood sat in that washroom for hours untouched and there was only three people and four nurses at the desk who not once took the samples to the lab leaving discusting bloodly stools to be checked while other patients had to use that same washroom.not only was this demeaning to me but they did not once help me to the washroom i had to get my sisters to help me back and forth with no wheelchair assistance or help from one nurse.our system is way off and i wish the healthcare was back in the eighties when nurses were more polite and considerate to my m=needs and many others.finally after hours of laying in pain angony coldness and ongoing bloody stools a nurse finally came back to the cot they left me in to say a doctor would be in in about twelve hours grinning like it was a joke to everyone at the desk not far from my area where i could hear laughter.my husband was upset how they handled my care then ten minutes after six hours in there the specialist came to check on me and asked where the stool samples were.it was startling to be asked.well they are all still sitting on the bathroom floor where they been for six hours. he looked discusted with how i was taken care of and said i dont know why that was left there.they know the procedure and today it was not crammed .i said please help me i stand the pain and i was freezing.he got me a warm blankey=t and did the test and gave me meds to help the pain.it was a horrible visit and i sure hope i dont ahve to endure going there again.he did appoligise for the staffs behavour but what if i had a seizure or worse.my fever was way up my husband took it and reported it as we arrived with no avail.it was like oh well shell survive.the whole experience was terrible and i can just imagine how this man felt let alone he was either elderly with dementia and could not get the proper care the first time.im not surprised because i seen alot of ignoring while i was there.i was given a small cold amount of a basin of water after surgery another time and she litterly threw a washcloth at my bedside table and said do the best you can we are busy.i had no washdown for four days my toothbrush was in my locker and they would not take the time to get it for me.i had to crawl to the end of my bed to get to a wheelcahair on my own with two wrapped up legs from knee surgery while my husband had to work out of town and not once they came to check on me i rang the bell for hours i peed the bed twice i was so weak and in alot of pain all through my stay there not to mention it was full of nurses at each staion when my husband came in he xould not beleive his eyes i was soaked and had to lay in the urine for hours on end.im not looking forward to my next surgery at all at any hospital.i have to travel out of town its makes a difficult support famliy time to help me but the bottom line they need to cange their patient care and i sure hope someone gets this back the way it was in the eighties when nurses and candy stripers were there to help you out of bed to get to the washroom. thanks very much

I have gone to the emergency room at our local hospital. If it is serious case you are treated quickly as I was. The triage nurse decides that. If it something lesser and can wait to the next day do it. My point is if you need immediate care you get it and if you don't you won't. Also adding 250,000 immigrants a year to the system does not help matters, a fact that cannot be ignored.

I can understand the issue but again we don't know if he has a doctor. Also now provinces now want you to see a doctor before they will renew a prescription. I'm diabetic and it isn't going away so my meds can only be given for at the mosy 90 days. So for the rest of my life every 90 dyas I have to see him. Also companies are sending employees to doctors to get go back to work notes for fitness for duty. This could be for 2 days or more off sick. Guess there is no trust anymore. More then just the health system to blame.

The hospital in my area has a chart with wait times for symptoms and such and how long you are expected to wait. People say that ER staff are overworked but when my son had trouble breathing when he was 13 years old and had chest pains we waited 4 hours before seeing a nurse nevermind a doctor! To be honest all I ever see nurses and doctors doing is looking at papers or pc screens! While patients are left sitting in rooms for hours at a time. You have to ask yourself, what are they doing why they take so long? The quality of service from health care to education to retail service has declined in the past few years and are replaced by the growing need for these people to want more money for doing LESS!! If that man has no family doctor what is the government trying to do to remedy that? Instead they complain about people abusing the system, maybe if he had a doctor available to him then he wouldn't have needed to go to an ER for care! Even if you do have a family doctor your expected to wait at least 3-4 weeks for care. Pisses me off when politicians complain about things THEY promise to fix at election time.

Umm, did anyone consider that maybe this individual had some mental health issues, and therefore visited the ER that many times b/c he wasn't/hasn't been correctly diagnosed or treated? In that case, it isn't the individual's fault, but the system's for not being able to help a person with mental health problems.

Why did he go 150 times was it for the same condition? We can not judge this person wirhout knowing all the details. We should have more doctors in the ER at all times. However I think that the triage nurse or triage doctor should screen patients with colds or other none life threatening conditions and refer these patients to clinics that are opened 24hrs a day. BETTER MANAGED ER: why not have the ER divided in 2 sections: Minor symptoms go to the fast lane doctor & serious symptoms go to the ER doctors. Triage would Refer patients to a fast lane Doctor for minor problems like broken limbs, cold, etc Meanwhile triage should send the urgent life threatening patients refered immediately to the ER doctors..

The health care system definately has much room for improvements. The lack of doctors and the long waiting time for ER rooms is unexceptable. I recently visited my ER in our local hospital around midnight. The service was very very poor and totally unprofessional. The doctor as well as the triage nurse were "sloppy" in their procedures and were of no help. Can someone not come up with some real solutions to these and other problems?

Just read an article in the Edmonton Journal today ; federal gov is looking to decrease expenditures at least 10% in all departments including health care which they are trying to offload to provinces. These cuts do not pertain to prison system which will benefit from increased budget.

Wait times of 8.3 hours in Ontario, Hospital Administrators making over $700k. It is a Govt issue...anything they manage cost way too much, we all know that. We need a tax payer revolt to stop the insanity. The Public worker now receives a salary that is 1.75 times that of similair positions in the Private sector.....this has got to stop. When the over $100k list is now to large you need a crane to lift it, we have a PROBLEM. The Public sector is a huge cost and provides no benefit towards our GDP. Let's be like Britain and Italy and shrink the Public sector in half.....we will all benefit!!!

Personally, I have never had to wait more than an hour in the ER. . .

Clearly the man has some mental health issues.. and is not representative of the actual issues facing health care reform in Canada..

The doctors and nurses are doing the best they can under the circumstances.
People are always whining about having to wait and if they didn't have to wait, those
same people would whine about something else. Socialism is not sustainable.
We need at least be allowed to have a choice to either pay or wait. Way too many liberals out there.

Alot of communities in sasckatchewan do not have "walk in clinics" We at times have a 3 to 5 day wait to get in to see a family doctor!! When your sick or your children are sick were else do you suggest we go ?

A few questions to ponder...
1. Due to the stress of their positions/job, a truck driver is deemed to be impaired after 10 hours; an airline pilot is also deemed impaired after so many hours, so how long before a doctor or nurse is deemed impaired?
2. How many patients is too many?
3. If billing is done in our names then why can't they provide a copy of all billing done in our names? This could be highly effective in identifying overuse/cost for minor "ailments" if one was to realize exactly how much it just cost to receive that "care" and will go a long way to curtailing over-billing and/or fraudulent use of services or health cards.
4. Even though part of the costs associated with patient care includes covering the cost of PROPERLY DOCUMENTING the care received by way of the medical record, medical records [especially test results] are often deliberately omitted from the patient record which is often the main tool for determining the proper course of action with regard to that care. Even the Doctors Colleges have reiterated the importance of accurate record keeping complimenting accurate medical care but a lot of physicians and others are deliberately vague if you can even read what is written or if it is properly maintained at all even though it is an expressed "duty under the law.”.
5. In this electronic/digital age & with all of the technologies available for transcription of the spoken voice and the millions of dollars spent to "implement" eHealth to "improve care" and communication, why is there not a mandatory system in place to allow the treating professional to speak out loud into a wireless microphone connected to their personal voice recognition/transcription software, much like those used to document autopsies as the coroner works to automatically provide the legible reporting of patient care in "real time" while being treated? Think of all the free time it would allow to spend on treating the patients instead of using an allotment of their valuable time to prepare them manually with all of the problems with legibility? Again this too would be a great tool to avoid duplication of services, improve care while reducing communication errors that contribute to mistakes/medical errors thereby reducing individual liability insurance costs as well as streamlining the records departments and saving more valuable time/cost associated with the storing, location and retrieval of those records and accuracy of the reporting. It would also go a long way to allow filing of more complete and accurate patient information with regard to care/costs as well as improve documentation. A digital copy could also be provided to each individual patient to bring along with them for systems that are not currently accessible at time of care again thereby reducing errors and duplication etc. and the costs associated while improving patient care and outcomes.
eHealth scandal paid consultants with less accomplished – this advice is free & will improve this “system.”

This is a true story for me...8 months of ER visits 3-5 times a week...and then when I mysteriously got better they quit testing. And told me that when it happened again they would resume the testing!!! But I did have a family doctor and a gastro, and a neuroligist and a dietician all working on my case

I live in Ontario and was told the cost to the healthcare system here just to walk through the ER door is $500 before anyone even sees a healthcare professional. People are of the impression that our healthcare is free???? In Ontario it is around half the provincial budget, higher in other provinces and where does that money come from our TAX DOLLARS...... It is because of abuses like this one that I would support a fee for visits of a non-emergency nature to an ER......

Sick as a dog. Call doctor get appointment in 2 weeks. Go to emergency

I absolutely cannot fathom why an individual would present themselves at an ER 150 times in one year. I am assuming that this individual does not have a family doctor, however, would it not have been far more sensible to attend a walk in centre?

So this article has nothing to do with the mans visits to the ER...surprised i only had to read it on one page.

8.3 hrs. wait time is an improvement? It's embarassing! So much wasted money and no remedy in sight.

This individual and his kind is the problem with the system. You can not tell me that this person needed to visit the ER that many times in a year. There are many other options that he could have taken. But hey, it's free so why not. Meanwhile people who indeed have a need to go to the ER are inconvenienced due to his lack of respect for the system. A friend of mine just recently broke her heel and Achilles tendon. She was taken to the ER in an ambulance and had to wait 6 hours for treatment all the while in great pain, while the ER staff took care of people who shouldn't have been there. ER staff are so overworked and complacent to real emergencies because of this. This person had other options, and should have taken them. And should be billed due to his reckless use of a valuable resource, as he would be billed for overuse of any other resource. The system is in place, it just needs to be used. I personally have been to the ER three times in my lifetime, delivered each time by ambulance. Three heart attacks which eventually required surgery, and was corrected.

The ER is for Emergencies, not the sniffles or stubbed toes. Grow up and stop taking advantage of a system that is prevented from penalizing abuse.

So, I went to the article to see why the man visited the ER 150 times in one year...and guess what??? The article doesn't bother explaining the reason(s)...did he have real physical problems? Or was it mental or an emotional issues? The title of the article was totally misleading...someone needs to polish his/her journalism skills, or the web site needs to actually READ the article before it's given a title.

My wife is in the health care field, so I speak from experience. There are WAY too many people who use the Emergency room at hospitals as a drop in centre when they get a runny nose. What is it about the word "emergency" that these people just don't understand? I've been there for emergencies myself, and I can't believe what people come in there for. They seem to think Emergency is a health clinic where they can go for the most inane reason. If you try to reason with some of these people, they just come across as arrogant, self centred and with an attitude of entitlement. They are also the first to complain about having to wait. They should be charged a hefty fee for their visits.

Definitely more needs to be done about ER wait times, and hopefully general practitioners will be more readily available to the general public - and not just in big cities, but in rural and norther communities as well.

there are taxi drivers in Ottawa whoa re MD's. As a public health trained Dentist I formualted a plan to introduce them to the system and give them a small salary while upgrading. On obtaining a licence these many MD's could work for a few eyars at ER's or in rural areas. I sent copies to all Provincial Ministers of health and the CMA I got one positive reply from Alberta... So much for the medical organization community. Sad and we plunder on

Dr Michael Pilon DDS DDPH

This guy should have been checked into the psych ward after 5 visits for his mystery ailment. What a nut job

hell that's nothing,,,,there's three or four individuals who hang out in the Dundas and Spadina area of Toronto. I know for a fact the one celebrated his 175th admission recently at just one of the four hospitals he frequents. Every day one some or all of them end up at one or more of Toronto's downtown hospitals. the alcohol related health care costs of just these four individuals annually is staggering.

I went to the Brampton Civic Hospital in Brampton (on Bovaird near Bramalea), every time I ask for a check up, they sent me to the Emergency Area and to wait there for about 4 hours each time. I do not think that is an intelligent way to treat something relatively minor (non-emergency situation) at the Emergency room.
After that there would be some more hours waiting after I passed the Emergency Entrance doors. It was more than 3, 4 times before I made the conclusion that this is the practice at this (and many other) hospital.

Our Canadian Health System is great. Just please dont work in unintelligent ways and we will end up with a enormous cost for the government and eventually the tax payers of this country. We have lots of room for improvement.

No wonder when I came to the US, they always said over here we have to wait for so long to get into a hospital (while truely think our Healthcare System is the most wonderful system that people often neglect and abuse in terms of the way we operate it).

To healthcare professionals and executives, please always and constantly monitor your operations to make sure that it is optimum in cost and efforts for your organization and for every citizen).

Our healthcare is a shambles, and this is perfectly illustrated when we consider an 8.3 hour wait time an "improvement." Last year I spent three full days in a bed in a hallway, while the lady beside me, with a much more serious condition, had spent had spent a full eight days in the hallway by the time I was checking out.

Our healthcare system is broke, and now offers vastly inferior care to that found in some "third-world" countries.

150 visits to emergency sounds absurd, but I noticed that no details were given of this unusual pattern. Why would anyone wait 12 hrs when they can book an appt with a family dr and be seen within an hr of their appt time? Perhaps the family dr system has failed the patient. Some GPs give really poor service. I dumped my GP. Some areas have no GPs accepting new patients. Perhaps he has no GP. Why blame the patient, when no details are given for his behavior? I do not know the guy, so I cannot say much more.

Canadas health care system is a farce. The wait time in hospitals has not changed at all, in fact the wait times have become worse. I suggest a nation wide survey be completed to get the real stats. As for getting a family doctor, good luck with that. I have been without a family doctor for about 8 years and I have requested a family doctor many times at walk in clinics, hospitals and other medical centres and no one wants to take on new patients. Not only does this put a large amount of stress on the patient as wait times at walk in clinics are long sometimes up to 3 hours but it also sends a negative message that the tax dollars that Canadians spend on health care are not being ultized properly. Who cares about our health care when it really comes down to it?

How about a mix of both private and public health care. I love socialism, but i also think the health care system needs reform. Health care workers are rockin'. Thanks guys!

If the Doctors and medical students in this country will focus on what they have been trained for rather then wait for some big US hospital to offer them a do nothing job for bags and bags of money maybe the wait times would not be 10 or 12 hours. t isn't the goverments (PROVICIAL or FEDERAL) the wait should be blamed on the doctors and yes the nurses too.

For medical attention in non emergencies (aka colds, flus, injuries other than broken limbs, pain caused by something other than what could be a threatened organ) I turn to my GP. I live in a town where I can GET a GP. If I didn't have one, like a few years ago, I would wait my turn at a walk-in clinic.
As someone who works in an ER setting I can tell you how many people abuse the system.
"I couldn't get into my Dr for a day so I came here for some tylenol."
"I didn't remember to fill my prescription and it's 10pm and now the pharmacy's closed."
"I've had this pain for 3 years and tonight I just had enough."
And usually those are the people complaining about wait times because they "just have a really quick problem that won't take long."
Emergencies and ambulances are for people who could be so ill they may die. You need to take responsibility for your own health and learn to move through the proper channels. If more people do this, I guarentee wait times will drastically decrease.

Yeds much needs to be done about wait times in Ontario. I know many sick people who won't go to Emergency because of the very long wait times...wait times are out of control and puts alot of stress on the nurses and doctors that have to work there every day....PLEASE DO SOMETHING SOON !!!!!!!!!!!!

Where I live in Ontario, if you can not wait a month to see your family doctor, you are told to go to emerge. It sucks but that's the health care system we pay for.

Have you tried to get to see a doctor? You go into the waiting room and 50 people are there. By the time their name is called, their gone. But they have registered the fact they were there, clogged up the medical office and gone home. Do the doctors charge for these no shows? Or is it just for statistic to show how overloaded our medical system is. Looks like the waiting time at emerg could be less than walk in clinics and safer too.