Until you have watched a loved one wait and wait for a hip replacement, you can't know what it truly means when you hear someone talk about the long wait times to receive a hip or knee replacement. To see someone suffer day after day for over a year, to see their mobility gradually get worse and worse, until you think it can't get any worse. But it does. Every step brings more and more pain until they must use a cane. Then, the cane is not enough and a walker is necessary for every step. Finally, the pain becomes so unbearable that prescription pain killers are needed to dull some of the pain.
Surely, our provincial government can be innovative and creative in dealing with the long wait times that so many Albertans are experiencing. We, as a society, do not tolerate such cruel behaviour towards our domestic pets Why, indeed, do we allow humans to suffer in such a way? British Columbia and England have very successful universal health care programs and they are dealing with hip and knee replacements within a public/private partnership. Is this one of the answers to our Alberta backlogs? Perhaps we need to seriously consider a public/private alternative to ensure Albertans do not suffer such long wait times in pain. If this is not the answer, then what?
Sylvia Jackson, St. Albert
