UNUSUAL SURPRISE
I want to thank you for the picnic knapsack prize from my entry in your unusual case contest. Interestingly enough, the mother of the baby depicted in the cartoon saw a copy of NRM and got in touch with an update. I haven't practised in that community for over 30 years and often wondered how things went long term.

Dr Barry Carruthers, Delta, BC

TALKING TWO-TIER
Here's what some of your colleagues had to say about our last poll question, "Do you think the other provinces should follow Alberta's lead and allow doctors to work in both public and private settings?":

• Two-tier medicine hasn't helped the UK. Sick people can become desperate and ready to pay for anything.
• Physicians should be allowed to do private practice. However it must stay affordable.
• Although freedom of choice remains important, until the physician shortage is seriously corrected I would have to say no. GPs are now free to reduce their number of general practice hours and transfer the time to do Botox and other lucrative activities. But by doing so, they contribute to the increasing number of patients who aren't able to find a family physician.
• I suggest that this whole controversy revolves around the inadequate compensation being forced on physicians. Presently GPs in Ontario make about $40/hour. Based on a 60-65 hour workweek, working 50 weeks a year, a physician nets $140,000 after office expenses. If physicians got paid $125/hour you'd get a happy workforce and an end to the perceived doctor shortage.
• I believe there's no room for a dual public private system.
• This garbage about not wanting a two-tier system and the needy not getting service is for the birds. Do hockey players and the PM's wife have the same care as some one from Timmins, ON, who can't articulate? When and where in the US and Canada in the last 30 years has there been a case of someone dying from being refused 'necessary medical care'. Let's ask Buzz Hargrove and the Canadian Auto Workers' Union and the MPPs and MPs to forgo their pension plans and drug benefits for all those deserving aging Canadians who don't have these types of plans.