We have a patient or former patient on each panel, and no doubt they will challenge us. They are people who have had the illness or condition being addressed by the panel, and they will tell us what the experience felt like, and how they think we can change the system to make it better for the patient. It is very different. Right now, services are organized to meet the needs of professionals, of union contracts, of service providers. Clinic appointments are set from morning to late afternoon, not usually in the evening, but most people are working and find it difficult to take time off work to go see a doctor or to get a diagnostic test done.
Stores have evening hours, to meet the needs of the consumer.
If we were a business, and we saw the patient as a customer, we would do things differently. I don't really see any conflict. We have to remember that the doctors, nurses and technicians go into the health care profession because they want to help people. They want to do something good, but they end up in a system that is managed in a way that doesn't always place the highest priority on that objective. Many don't like the system, but have been essentially powerless to change it.