Instead of being sent to a specific physician for one of the five wait time procedures, the patient would be put on a central list and assigned to the first available surgeon. This would be similar to lining up at the bank and waiting for the “next available teller” said one hospital executive who supports the idea.

This turn of events appears to be in response to Dr. Alan Hudson’s criticisms of the Champlain LHIN’s management of its waits to date and its failure to keep up with wait times of other regions.

But the single queue system on its own is not likely to improve wait times overall. It may improve wait times for some patients but the same volume of patients still needs to be served and whether the patients prefer the “teller system” when it comes to their health care may soon be evaluated.

Why some surgeons have longer waits than others deserves exploration as well as why such problems with wait times seem to be occurring more in one geographic area than others.

Coincidentally, Ottawa, the major city within the Champlain LHIN, was ranked as Canada’s smartest city tied with Victoria as evaluated by the Canadian Council of Learning using a variety of criteria such as formal education, volunteerism and spending on books.The Ottawa-based non-profit corporation’s data was recently reported in Maclean’s magazine.

A population of patients who are well versed in the difficulties of our current health care system and educated about various procedures they need as well as being in a position to advocate for themselves could be expected to seek out a spot in the queue before their clinical condition deteriorates knowing full well they are going to wait months if not years for some procedures while in the queue.

Is this a bad thing?

To advocate for yourself and to have one’s health provider advocate on your behalf should not be seen as negative. In fact, empowering patients to take control of their health and take responsibility for their care should be encouraged.

Instead of blaming patients for getting in the queue too early and blaming physicians for arranging to give their patients access to the queue, we should be looking at ways to reduce wait times in general. A central queue will not accomplish this unless it is accompanied by additional funding to create the bureaucracy to monitor it, to monitor patients while they are waiting, and to provide the additional resources  for more timely care for all.

A physician’s responsibility to their patient shouldn’t be overshadowed by the need to blur wait time optics for political need. Or should it?