laurabrod Did you know... Ontario women wait 168 days for breast cancer surgery and men wait 98 days for prostate surgery. about 2 hours ago from web
ONE HUNNERD AND SIXTY EIGHT DAYS??!?! For BREAST CANCER surgery??!?
Yeah, "right."
Reasonable people just know - KNOW - Laura Brod's claim just begs to be fact checked. Now, it goes without saying, that RightWingNuts like Laura Brod believe stuff like that without even thinking "checking" - but, I'll say it anyway: "RightWingNuts like Laura Brod believe stuff like that without even thinking "checking."
What's a reasonable person do? Well, I checked!
First, it was off to Snopes.com ! And here's part of what Snopes.com found, concerning a different claim about - allegedly - how lousy Canadian healthcare is; an alleged claim that a reasonable person just intuitively knew couldn't be correct (but someone like Laura Brod would probably "believe"):
Using Ontario (Canada's most populous province) as an example, we find that provincial wait times measured in mid-2007 ranged from 13 days for angioplasty to 297 days for knee replacements.
Similar, median wait times in British Columbia (measured for the three months ending in July 2007) ranged from 1 week for cancer services to 17.5 weeks for knee replacements.
Not content to simply use Snopes.com to debunk Laura Brod's claim, I clicked on the first link in that Snopes.com.
And even though Snopes said that link was to info from July 2007, those industrious Canadians - "busy as beavers!", so to speak - have updated figures at that Ontario link! Updated as of 25 June 2009, as a matter of fact! Well, 07:59:00 on 25 June 2009, to be precise. Of course, "precise" is something - no surprise here! - RightWingNuts like Laura Brod, simple as they are, simply aren't.
Because, that webpage, to Ontario's Ministry of Health, clearly states that although the baseline (standard; goal) for cancer treatment was "81" days, the actual results acheived were 90 percent completed within 57 days. Now, that was "all" cancer cases; some further checking to further discredit Laura Brod was in order! So, when I found a link on a page that said:
"Wait Times In Ontario", I clicked it! Eventually, I ended up here, where it said, and I quote:
Breast Cancer Provincial Target - 84 days
That, of course, is the standard/goal. What were the actual results?
Breast Cancer Provincial Wait Time - 34 days
Actual Results, per Ontario's Mininstry of Health Webpage are 34 days; actual claim by Laura Brod, 168 days - a difference of 134 days!
Hmmm...who to believe?
Better idea - check with the Communications and Information Branch of Ontario's Ministry of Health! Message left; message returned by a gent named David Jensen of the Ministry's Media Relations Department.
Yes, according to Mr. Jensen, those figures on the web were correct. In Ontario, for March, April, and May 2009, they beat the standard by 50 days - nearly 2 months. I then asked Mr. Jensen about another set of figures I found on their website - a page called Wait Time Targets where it stated - and I quote:
Ontario's Wait Time Targets for Cancer: Priority I: Immediate; Priority II: 2 weeks; Priority III: 4 weeks; Priority IV: 12 weeks
So I asked Mr. Jensen - if a woman had to wait 168 days for breast cancer surgery, as a potential candidate for Governor in Minnesota - Laura Brod - claimed, that would have to be a very, Very, VERY minor case of breast cancer, wouldn't it? After all, the target for a Priority IV (low priority) cancer was 12 weeks, or 84 days, and Laura Brod was claiming twice that: 168 days, or 24 weeks?
Well, Mr. Jensen was very diplomatic; wouldn't speculate where Laura Brod could possibly have gotten her information - but, Mr. Jensen did note there was a lot - a LOT - of misinformation concerning Canada's Health System.
"...a lot of misinformation..." Well, well, well - what a surprise, "eh"?
Well, not really. Back to Laura Brod. As she's busily trying to figure out if she can become Minnesota's next Governor T-Bag, will Laura Brod continue to repeat misinformation?
Stay tuned!
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