There is certainly some long wait times for care here in Canada, but the moment it's life threatening those times vanish. The wait times we Canadians grumble a

There is certainly some long wait times for care here in Canada, but the moment it's life threatening those times vanish. The wait times we Canadians grumble about are for quality of life surgeries like hip replacements and emergency room wait times for non emergencies. Cancer diagnosis or heart surgery gets done right away. To provide excellent care for people who need it right away without spending US level dollars on healthcare requires something to give, and we have chosen wait times for stuff that won't kill people. I'm pretty happy with the setup since I know not just my family but all families get treatment when they need it, and we all suffer together in the waiting room when we stub our toes. Some examples: My mother cut her finger quite badly making dinner a few years ago. She wrapped it up in a towel, grabbed a book since she knew she was in for a wait and headed to the ER. Triage nurse confirmed she wasn't in danger of bleeding out and added her name to the list. My mom waited 3 or 4 hours and then someone stitched her up. Many people in much worse shape were wheeled through while she waited. My father was peering out a window with security bars, slipped and caught his wedding ring on a bar which partially degloved his ring finger. We rushed him to the ER where the triage nurse raced him into an OR to have the ring removed (it was embedded) and his hand stitched up. He was home within an hour or so with his mangled wedding ring in a urine sample jar. Followup care recommended plastic surgery in combination with physiotherapy to restore finger movement. My Dad had to wait several months for a plastic surgery opening since it wasn't life threatening. Plus based on his telling the other people in the plastic surgery waiting room has crazy gruesome disfiguring traumas and he was happy to let them go first. A friend got stung by a bee and thought nothing of it. The next day we were playing soccer and he got hit with the ball where the sting had been. He had a delayed allergic reaction of some kind since his leg swelled up to about triple size and turned a really crazy colour. We drove him to the ER and I've never seen a triage nurse move so fast in my life. My buddy was on an IV with doctors prodding him within 30 seconds of walking through the door. He needed to have a full IV bag of a concoction of drugs I couldn't pronounce twice a day for a week, but he was fine.