There's no science to this. The whole concept of having hundreds of benchmarks in place that are not based on any scientific merit is worrisome to certainly most people working in the system and I think to most Canadians.
We don't have good evidence, good research and good literature that supports some of these time frames, ... So they're a best guess at this point.
You can double and triple and quadruple the tests you have and the wait list goes down only a small amount,
I think what the minister said the whole issue of who is on lists, how do you audit or monitor it to make sure you are gaining the ground you need to gain is an important part of this.
The money is really just beginning to find its way to the clinical front, ... Two and three years from now I think we will see improvements in how waiting lists are managed and, secondly, that we'll see an improvement in waits for Canadians.
The money has only been entering the system in the last few months in most jurisdictions, ... Though each province has some considerable success story to tell about how things have improved, a lot of that wouldn't have filtered down to physicians' practices.
