But the bottom line is, if your physician says that it's medically safe for you to wait, you may go on a waiting list. But if your health status is compromised by your condition, you will have the surgery, you will get the tests, without a wait. Some people are on waiting lists because they only want Dr. Jones to do the surgery. We do have our choice of doctors here - if you're not happy with one, you can go see another. It's not like what you have in some of your HMOs.
Nurses here have some of the same concerns as nurses in the U.S., unfortunately.
We aren't filling out insurance forms here or having treatment protocols second-guessed by health insurance companies. But we do have some of the same financial pressures here as you do. Governments have gone through cost-cutting, and there is a reduction in the amount of money available for healthcare spending. I think we spend 9.4 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on healthcare, compared to the 14 or 15 percent that the U.S. spends. Because we have a single-payer system, we save a lot of money on healthcare administration.