[rayiner]

I have two elderly parents and three kids, and take them to a mid size hospital near a small city (under 50k people). The ER waits can be long, but they’ve accurately addressed the problem every time. Are ER waits shorter in other countries?

It also takes no time at all to get an appointment. I take my kids to the pediatrician for basically nothing. My 5 year old ran face first into the edge of a table. The pediatrician saw him an hour later, authorized a CT scan, and we got the images and the doctor reviewed them an hour or two after that.

[_heimdall]

Sounds like you definitely have better access to good care than I do. In live in a bit more of a rural area, but were only 45 minutes from two different cities with large medical support, including one of the larger medical schools.

I haven't actually had issues with wait time but with actual quality of care. I'm by no means a medical expert, but on at least two recent occasions I had to be the one pointing out factors to the doctor when my father in law had a kidney stone then gall bladder issues. Specifically, the doctor simply forgot about the gall issues an hour later and was pointing back to another potential kidney stone.

Its been a while since I've had to schedule a doctor's appointment, but anecdotally I hear it is pretty slow. After the stones my father in law had an annual checkup and was referred to a cardiologist, the fastest they could book was 2 months out though that was for a check without immediate symptoms which would play a factor.

Once at the hospital I haven't seen issues getting specific tests run, like a CT scan for example. Here it does seem like they have the bandwidth for that kind of stuff once you're in the door.