Healthcare: How Long Do Patients Have To Wait?
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2962218
cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2962218
Well that's a straight up lie. You can go to the waiting list data for elective surgeries in each state and territory and see that it's closer to 365 day waiting period on average.
I tore this apart in a comment in the original feddit post. For you Australians the tl;dr is that the data is outdated, with some of it being from 2014, while other data is from the pandemic. NONE of the data from any country is from 2023 as is being claimed.
Australia shits me at the moment, say I get sick and need a few days off work due to the cold or whatever. I call the Dr they say we have an appointment next week. Come next week I'm healthy and over my illness because I just needed bed rest and time to recover.
I can't get a Drs certificate or take an extra day off to go see the Dr and say I was sick can I have a cert for Wednesday Thursday last week please.
Maybe your employer will accept a statutory declaration instead of a doctor's certificate. Mine does.
They should include more countries for this to be a fair comparison.
Here in Japan you have to wait zero days to see the equivalent of a GP (a doctor of internal medicine is what would be considered the closest) unless it is a weekend or holiday. But even then, there are some clinics open on those days (they share the responsibility on a rotating basis).
You simply rock up and wait to be seen. Generally you won’t be waiting too long. Maybe 30 to 60 minutes. With pharmacies conveniently located next door, you’ll be in and out in no time when you’re feeling crook.
Well thats interesting. So we could look at how Switzerland and Germany do things to improve.
Although we should remember in such a complex system nothing is ever as simple as 'change un peu, et voila!'
I don't think any people that made an appointment in 2023 have been able to see a doctor yet. We'll have to wait for a bit.
this looks like a very skewed statistic, ofc the us looks bad because there's only the most civilised European countries, Australia and the us included
Its fair to say its skewed.
The point is, comparisons are useful, but the comparisons that are most valuable are from countries (medical systems) estimated to be around the same level of development, and have a similar societal structure.
Good additions might be NZ, Japan, S.Korea, and Canada. (I'm sure theres others)
A better way to do this would be to take apart the US by State, afterall some US states have as large, or larger, populations than the countries listed. This would help account for the wide variability in State to State care. I suppose the reason they didn't is Federal influence is still large, even in the US, also the infographic would become unwieldy with 50 added lines.
The infographic format is probably too simple for the kind of information its trying to communicate.
A better way, from a US centric perspective, might be to use some sort of vine with bunches of States and comparable countries by their side in their appropriate bunch. Say, and i'm just guessing here, Vermont in a bunch that includes Switzerland, while Mississippi might be in a bunch that includes countries with less successful health outcomes.
The best way to do this would be to use data from 2023 (as the infographic claims) and NOT data from the years 2000 through 2022. It would also be helpful if the source wasn't a right-biased US based organization whose stated goal is de-regulation of the Medical Industry.
They could also do their reports using established methodology instead of creating their own, base it on first sources instead of literature review, and maybe they could avoid biased sources while they were at it.
Seriously, I tore into the data and sourcing and it's simply awful. The base report isn't really even about wait times, it's about increasing efficiency (and thus profitability) through using telehealth, blister packs, and OTC contraceptives.