Time Immortal

I just don’t see a way that the doctors can come out of this story and not look like complete douchebags, even if they do make a valid point about the relative availability of treatment for scoliosis on different sides of the Rocky Mountains.

A 12-year-old child with epilepsy, cerebral palsy and a spinal deformity has been advised by orthopedic surgeons at B.C. Children’s Hospital to look for a doctor in Alberta or elsewhere in Canada after her parents spent months drawing public attention to long waits for non-emergency surgery.

Dr. Doug Cochrane, the hospital’s vice-president of medicine, acknowledged the doctors took a highly unusual action, but said it was justified on the grounds they felt they could not establish a proper working relationship with the parents.

The girl, Carly Lamont, is one of 150 B.C. children on a waiting list for spinal surgery to correct the curvature caused by a condition called scoliosis. Only two doctors in B.C. do such surgery on children, while there are four in Alberta.

Given that scoliosis runs in my family, this story is kind of relevant to my interests. And for whatever reason, it just makes my blood boil. Okay, I get that the parents haven’t exactly been fully co-operative, but they were drawing attention to a real problem that exists in the Canadian system: wait times are pathetic.

And I realize that the doctors have every right to recommend treatment be sought in another province, especially if the wait times are liable to be lower elsewhere, but there’s still no getting around the fact that they come out of this looking vindictive.