Waitlists are part of the problem - but arguably not the main ones.

If I had encountered doctors who actually understood what they were taught, who actually understood pain and how the nervous system works, then they would have directed diagnostics like imaging in an efficient manner to actually properly problem solve what was going on; instead over the past 12 years I've had to learn myself everything related to what's been going on - as I've been playing whack-a-mole to knock out the next strongest pain, my pain level being so high that my brain wasn't able to actually feel all of the pain sources at once - and it's arguably been only in the last year that I can feel the last few major remaining sources.

One example of this, the last "top expert" in Canada's largest city - Toronto, didn't even follow the literature for diagnosing what I was certain I had based on the symptoms; and there's no penalty for him - meanwhile I had X months of waiting, where leaving a public review of my experience won't really matter - won't allow the public to review testimonials/experiences for themselves - to then decide to go to - and pay a different doctor, where otherwise free market capitalism forces would instead drive more money through word of mouth referrals (etc) to the doctors who show themselves to be competent; and then their skills and knowledge and organization could expand, rather than whatever incompetent-rotted centralized administration is allowing to exist - so long as they toe the line and comply with whatever rules they put in place.

When I told him towards the end of the appointment that he's not even following the literature - where it's more often a diagnostic through exclusion of other sources, rather than due to an obvious cause from imaging [most laypeople don't understand that diagnostic imaging doesn't catch a lot of things - so just because you don't see it on imaging doesn't mean there isn't a cause]; oh, and he couldn't even pull up the MRI imaging because their health network's servers were down, so he couldn't even review the imaging - but still concluded it wasn't the syndrome I had all the symptoms for.

Not too long after that appointment I went to the US - taking me 1.5 years to even find a doctor/surgeon who was able/willing to diagnose me and do the surgery, trying as quickly as possible in my debilitated state, my pain level still how it interferes a lot with my concentration - and went and did the surgery which 100% resolved that pain and symptoms.

Another observation or insight I had is that when in a system where you don't have enough supply for the demand, the doctors who are really good will get plenty of word of mouth referrals - so their schedule will get filled up quickly. That then means it is either 1) new doctors, or 2) doctors no one refers them to specifically - and so the appointment you'll most likely get, the soonest you'll get, will most likely be a doctor in one of those two scenarios.

If I am to try to get compensated for these procedures I'd have to spend likely $100,000s, where you have to find a lawyer that specializes (very very few of them in Canada) in suing the province's health insurance company (e.g. OHIP in Ontario), and where it would likely take years of legal processes, as they automatically deny something like 86% of claims - as insurance companies seem to do, possibly in hopes the person doesn't have money to fight them even on legitimate claims based on their own rules; and at the moment my concentration is still too fucked and my nervous system too sensitive to stress to be able to start organizing for that, aside from the high cost.