Everyone knows how the system works, but the system is still poor from a patient perspective.

Is it? I always thought the system worked rather well from a patient's perspective. Both as a patient myself and as the parent of a child who needed medical attention in Canada. (My daughter in BC when she was little and unwell and my son in Ontario for the first 10 years of his life)

Maybe not getting enough sex is causing stress...I'm told it causes anxiety but I wouldn't know.
At my age (79) watching Kardashian arses on TV gives me acid reflux and get anxious to change the channel.

What about naturopathic products like melatonin (useful when not too much sun around).

I have to say that at times it can be frustrating and wouldn't it be great if everyone could be seen as they have been referred but this is the real world. By the comments above it seems that no, not everyone knows how the system works

A few years ago my wife had some sort of recurring skin problem. It seemed that every time it came on, she was already booked in at the doc's for something else, so waited it out for a day or two and it went away.

Not much the doc could do without symptoms there and then but he did make a referral to a dermatologist at the hospital. (it wasn't diabetic foot pain related, we knew that).

It was all a bit pointless by the time the appointment came around.

But then one day it came on again, worse than before and I called the doc's office and our brilliant receptionist Becky got us in for an appointment straight away.

While there, the doc checked her and phoned the same dermatologist as the previous referral and she would see her straight away.

Looks like an example of effective triage.

This is likely one of this things that can vary enormously according to locality, resources (sometimes efficiency or lack) and/or urgency.

In my experience some waits have been months while others as little as a week...or even an hour

My stress test last year and haltor monitor being fitted a few weeks ago were all done at my local hospital and within days of my referral.

Hi, let me chip in my 10c here. 18 months ago I had some chest pain when running, relatively mild and it pretty much stopped when I started to walk. Run again and it started again. I went straight to emergency and told them the issue, I was seen straight away and long story short left hospital 3 days later after having all tests done, including an angiogram. I had one artery 90% blocked and 2 others 40-60% blocked. During this time I felt fine and a complete and utter fraud for taking up resources that sick people needed.
All is now under control with a myriad of medications, but I am so glad I walked into the ER when I did

Thanks for your input to this thread. Did they insert a stent?

No, no stent. The artery was too small and therefore it was too dangerous to stent. I was told if I had a heart attack it was relatively small "real estate". Not too impressed with that!
I did cardiac rehab and now get on with my life.

Good luck with your health magnumpi

Peterborough has a chest pain clinic. I was in Emerge with CP. you don't wait with that, taken in, put on a monitor, bloods done. Repeated bloods after 5 hours and then home with a next day referral to the clinic where I had an echo, a stress test, history taken again and saw a cardiologist.

Just sayin'

Was this doctor involved @ the Peterborough hospital. My father initially had him and then transferred out and was seen with great success in Kingston.

Hughes hearing wraps up | Peterborough Examiner

Oh he's involved in the clinic but I didn't see him. I'll say no more except that I'll be very interested in the outcome of that hearing

He came one day a week to where my parents live and did a 2 minute consult which didn't impress my father who has was an academic in a field closely related and so could question Dr Hughes a lot on what he was prescribing. As soon as they could, they switched to Kingston and things have worked out much better. It seems as though that Dr had too many patients.

[QUOTE=Partially discharged;12053622]He came one day a week to where my parents live and did a 2 minute consult which didn't impress my father who has was an academic in a field closely related and so could question Dr Hughes a lot on what he was prescribing. As soon as they could, they switched to Kingston and things have worked out much better. It seems as though that Dr had too many patients.[/QUOTE

I've never met him as a patient and can't comment otherwise.

[QUOTE=bats;12053631] Cripes.... 80 patients in a day