Why does it take 10 months to get an MRI? So few machines purchased with the limited funds of a government paid health plan? So few operators of said machines due to low pay, or there is no money in the plan to pay for more?
What limits all this? The government just doesn't have the $$ to pay for these things? No one wants to work in healthcare due to the low wages? Can someon help me out hre so I have ammo against those I talk to who advocate universal healthcare?
As an aside, I can tell you this: My county free health clinic has a policy of only taking daily appointments. This means you have to start calling them at 8 am and hope you get through before all of the appointments for the day are taken. Of course, you are calling them along with a thousand other people, so it's always busy. If you do not get through in time, too bad! You'll have to try again tomorrow, as they do not accept appointments for anything but the current day.
Contrast this with you-pay-your-way healthcare: I call my Dr. and if I'm really bad off, I'll get squeezed in somehow, otherwise, I'm given an appointment for the next day or a few days from now.
Folks, government run healthcare is not the answer!
I’m a psychologist, used to be a nurse and have served on a Board of Health for many years. I’m not sure that I can answer your question precisely but will share what I know about centrally planned “care”. I’ll start with a personal example. My husband recently has had problems with lightheadedness. Initially we thought it was a virus but after it persisted longer than 2-3 weeks (with some chest pain), the NP thought we needed to do tests to rule out “the big dogs”. He had a cardiac cath and an MRI. It only took a matter of days to get these both done. We wanted to rule out CAD, brain tumors, etc. However, in reality the probability of either of these was pretty low and given that we haven’t found anything thus far, his lightheadedness will likely go away on it’s own (it will be self-limiting). If we were in Canada, Ireland, etc. we probably wouldn’t have gotten these tests so quickly. We might have been put on a waiting list and by the time his name would come up he would be better (most likely) or very sick or dead (much less likely). In public health we tend to look at the big picture and probabilities - doing the most good with the resources we have. Centrally planned health care is similar...how can we do the most good with the resources we have - think utilitarianism if you are into philosophy. Many neurological problems are rare (brain tumors really aren’t common) and/or can wait, so I imagine this is one explanation for why resources in this area are limited. Read Daschle’s book. He talks about having a “board/group” make decisions as to the “standards of care” and allocation of resources.
I don't know your circumstances or the availability of MRI clinics but I had one back in October with only a week's notice. But then again, we have lots of MRI facilities available here..........