Amid the chaos, it’s important to shine light on excellence in health-care system

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2025 (414 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I went for my regular blood tests this week through our publicly funded health-care system. I showed up at the Dynacare lab at 633 Lodge Ave. near Grace Hospital at 11:25 a.m. without an appointment. It wasn’t terribly busy — maybe seven or eight people in the waiting room.

As usual, my family doctor had already sent over the requisition form for the tests he wanted. There was no one in line at the counter. I walked up, handed over my paper Manitoba Health card (my new plastic one, which I ordered online last week, is on the way). They pulled my file, checked my card, asked me if I had fasted (yes) and told me to have a seat. That took all of two minutes.

Conveniently, this private/for-profit company has a large computer screen on the wall in their comfortable waiting room that shows not only what the average wait time is (it was nine minutes when I arrived), it lists the first names of the people in the queue and how long they can expect to wait.

I was sixth in line. “Thomas B., six minutes,” it said. Great.

Staff were friendly and personable. I could hear them asking people how they were, using their first names.

My name was called within six or seven minutes.

Giving blood doesn’t bother me. And these clinicians are so good at it, I barely felt a prick. Four vials, pee in a cup and I’m done. I left the lab at 11:45 a.m. I was in and out in 20 minutes. Under our universal health-care system, I paid nothing.

Within 24 hours, I got a call from a clinician at my family doctor’s office. They already had the results. I have my annual checkup with my doc next week, but the clinician asked if I wanted to review the results with her by phone that day. Sure. Let’s do it.

Everything checked out. Cholesterol a tiny bit high, but nothing to be alarmed about. More exercise and some dietary changes should take care of that, she said. We discussed the results for about 10 minutes. She was pleasant and helpful.

So what’s my point? My point is that I write a lot about our publicly funded health-care system and usually shine the light on things that are not working well. That’s typically what we do in journalism: bring attention to things that need fixing.

But from time to time, we should also tell the stories of what works well. And we do, through news stories, feature pieces, editorials or opinion columns like this one.

There are parts of our health-care system that work well. This is one of them. I have no idea if this is the experience for everyone, or if other family physician offices have the same quality and efficiency as mine. But this aspect of the system works extremely well for me.

Part of the reason in this case is that government partners with a private firm for blood and other tests such as X-rays. There is a profit motive involved. But contrary to the rhetoric we often hear from some that “profit has no place in health care,” it actually drives excellence in this case.

Family physician offices are private, too. We don’t usually characterize their net revenues as “profit,” but it is. That’s how they make their living. And many of them make a good living. They bill government for the work they do, pay for their overhead costs and the rest is profit.

There are parts of the publicly managed health-care system that work well, too. As much as we hear about the horror stories of long waits in emergency departments, if you show up to an ER with a life-threatening condition, you will almost certainly be seen and treated very quickly.

We hear many good stories about palliative care, cancer treatment and cutting-edge technology in medicine, all of which provide patients with world-class care. Manitoba has some of the best doctors, nurses and allied health-care workers in the country. There are success stories out there. And it’s important to highlight them from time to time.

Still, the main focus must be on improving the areas that are under-performing. Wait times for procedures such as hip and knee replacement surgery or delays in accessing diagnostic tests such as MRIs, CT scan and ultrasounds are far too long. Hospitals are under-resourced, overcrowded and unable to meet patient demand. Admitted patients regularly pile up in ERs and wait days for a hospital bed, which contributes to long emergency-room wait times.

There are serious problems in our publicly funded health-care system that require fixing. But there are many good things about it, too.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca