Hi there!

Long time no post....

Quick update... Injured knee 2 weeks ago tomorrow (Mar 15th) skiing - taken off mountain by tabogan (not recommended for anyone suseptable to a head ache as it's v bumpy)... Initially diagnosed with grade 3 ACL tear in knee..

Saw another Doc, and then physio etc. Neither believe it's as bad, but ordered an MRI scan 10 day ago. told I'd have to wait about 4 months for that...

Anyway, on another item, I'd been ordered and MRI on my spine for something totally different and had that at 8pm on Wednesday, asked then if they had any record for the scan on the knee - NO was the answer...

Sods Law - got call the next day re: Knee, and can I come in on Sunday at 7pm.!!!!!

Do any UK hospitals do out patients scans on a Sunday or after normal office hours? What has really impressed me is that I was told it would be 4-6 months wait, where it's actually been about 2 weeks max.....! The hospital also happens to be just a few blocks from me.....

Just a curious post - and if you wanted to know -the knee seems miles better, ditched the crutches after just 5 days, and stairs now pose no probs...

Bx

I'm not even sure it would happen anywhere else in Canada.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't happen in Calgary.

Even as an in-patient I have had to wait until after the weekend for certain tests.

Major tests are carried out all weekend but, for the most part, only for emergencies, as are major operations. I have experienced both.

As would be expected.

Key word emergencies.

I had my MRI done at Vancouver Hospital a couple of weeks ago and they told me that they got their second machine in October and were belting away trying to get the waiting lists down.

If there's a cancellation - they go through their lists and ring anyone within easy travelling distance to fill the spot. Guess that's what happened here.

MRIs - arn't they SO noisy!! A bit frightening, but the staff were great.

My wife had an MRI here. It wasn't long to wait from the referral time ( a week or two?) and it was done on a Saturday afternoon. It was really quiet compared to the other times we'd been there during the week.

You have enhanced health care then??

What's that?
This was just a normal referral.

What we do have here, in a bilingual province, is an English hospital and a French hospital. I wonder if there is duplication/spare capacity/whatever as a result and that things don't take as long.

I might be completely wrong in this thought but my wife has had a couple of hospital specialist referrals and neither of the first appointments took long to come through...although I do know one resulted from someone else's cancellation. I was also referred for routine colonoscopy as part of a routine "over 50" medical and that was done within weeks as well.

If the doc decides an x-ray is needed as part of investigation rather than emergency, he gives a form and you take it to the x-ray dept whenever you like. In. x-ray done and out in under an hour is the norm. Is that the same elsewhere in Canada?

They certainly do things on a Sunday here on the NHS - my husband was recently in an accident and he had an x-ray on a Sunday (non emergency, this was several days after the accident) and then also had his op on a Sunday (again, 5 days after the accident so not an emergency).

But I don't know if that's the norm or just our local hospital.

We pay &98 a month for regular health care which covers docs visits, blood work and scans, xrays, referrals to consultants and operations etc. If you have extended health care you jump to the head of the queue and waiting is limited. Extended health is usually part of a job or retirement package, but we retired here and it would cost us FROM $200 and up. there is never a wait for xrays, but MRI's are very much a different situation.

I had to wait seven months for my first one and take huge amounts of morphine while waiting for spinal surgery. Ho hum!

That's very different from here, Ontario, no variety of queue jumping plan is legal here.

I don't believe the public hospitals/clinics being paid from the public system allow line jumping.

However there are private clinics who do not accept payment from the public system where one can pay cash/credit and I am sure some private extended health insurance may pay for it as well, and there is little to no waiting for their services.

My wife recently hurt her arm snowboarding so we ended up in casualty at
9pm and i was impressed with how smoothly it went but they said she would have to come back next day for an ultrasound to check for muscle damage. We were out by 10pm but as they couldn't find an appointment for the next day they said turn up at 8am with a book and wait, well she was there until 3pm!!! and after all that the ultrasound didn't reveal anything useful so they needed the consultant to see her but he was tied up. Eventually they arranged for her to go the next morning to see him first thing and after 5 minutes he said "you need an MRI but the waiting list is 6 to 9 months and i need to know within days if it needs surgery otherwise it will be too late"
He promised to try and arrange to get one quickly through his office but said we may have to pay and get one privately if they couldn't squeeze her in.
Thankfully she got an appointment 2 days later and it was all done but we haven't heard a word from the consultant since so we assume it was not an urgent surgery case but will now have to call his office tomorrow to find out.

Well - Had the MRI of my knee today - so that is now 2 trips to St Paul's in under a week to the Radiology Dept!!!!

MRI was v noisy however I was given a list of CD's to choose from and my choice was then played through the head phones whilst the machine did it's thing. As was a Wednesday evening - the dept was v quiet, and unlike last time, I was not waiting around at all.... I was actually trying to catch up on Hello Magazines but this wasn't going to happen!!!!

I live withing a block of the hospital and wonder if I was slotted into cancelled times, however I'd not requested that as it was only 10-14 days wait for each.

Most impressed by the healthcare system here - so far..............

Bx

I had an MRI done in London (UK) on a Sunday evening. When the appointment came I really thought it was an error.