A message from the author, Monica Kidd:
Access to care is increasingly on our minds here in Canada. I see this every day as a family doctor: patients who haven’t been able to follow up on chronic illnesses and have developed preventable complications, patients who suffer on a waiting list for surgery. Access was one of the reasons I left full‐time journalism in my thirties to go to medical school. I thought, maybe, instead of writing stories about the family doctor shortage, I should shut up and go be one.
Twenty years later, I’ve come full circle. Good reporting requires analysis, and being a doctor gives me a head start on health stories. That’s why I felt this was a necessary piece for me to write: I knew how to tell the story of how private health care is feeding off the public system. But I also knew there was more to uncover. When I found a doctor who does private surgeries and was willing to go on record about it, I knew I had something that would be valuable to readers of The Walrus.
