Western Standard - November 09, 2026


What Can Canada Learn From Germany's Surgery Waits？

Why a US Political Shakeup May Not End Tariffs Let the Kids Play Hockey, Keep Politics Off the Ice

Episode Stats


Length

1 minute

Words per minute

188.28

Word count

332

Sentence count

17


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Either way, lots of other things.
00:00:01.420 You know, I want to see some stuff on the healthcare front.
00:00:05.140 This is, you know, as we were talking with Dave a bit,
00:00:08.660 optometrists now being able to do some surgeries, some,
00:00:11.580 and of course the Ophthalmological Society is very upset about this
00:00:15.680 because it's cutting in on them.
00:00:17.020 Something I found in the CBC of all things, you know, the state broadcaster.
00:00:21.040 And they actually did a pretty good article showing knee surgeries in Germany
00:00:27.720 and how quickly they're getting done.
00:00:29.920 they interviewed a Canadian expat who'd moved to Germany.
00:00:32.920 Knee and hip surgeries in Germany,
00:00:35.280 you get them done within a couple of months after asking.
00:00:40.020 Even from four weeks to a few months,
00:00:42.100 that's the wait for a new knee in Germany.
00:00:44.400 I had a family member waiting on hip replacements.
00:00:47.860 Two years in crippled, immobile,
00:00:51.520 unable to work, and in dire discomfort.
00:00:54.840 Two years for the first hip.
00:00:56.980 We'll see how long before the second one.
00:00:58.720 actually that surgery is coming up in a few weeks why though and cbc was actually a little open up
00:01:04.360 about that why are they getting them done so fast in germany and a universal system it's not like
00:01:09.140 the big bad american system universal and they say it right in there because there's competition
00:01:13.880 because they've opened it up and they've made it so hospitals actually make money from these
00:01:18.920 surgeries and doctors are encouraged to pull people in and do them and there's some privatization
00:01:23.200 they even actually pointed out in the article some hospitals in germany have actually gone
00:01:26.420 broke. So if they're poorly managed, they will go down. But it's competitive. We don't have that
00:01:31.500 in our system. So whether it's the eye surgeries, the knee surgeries, the hip surgeries, even the
00:01:37.200 little cracks in the good old CBC are finally realizing we need some competition in our system
00:01:43.520 or we're going to die on the waiting lists in Canada.