Assessment Centre wait lists

Ya I am reading this at work now because I have so many people at work asking about it because they want to get it done. They shouldn't have changed it at all and given people the choice to decide for themselves. I am happy I already have the surgery and don't have to go through all this.

Alright, so how are these centres working at reducing wait times like the press release suggested? Well, just 1 month ago when we didn't have these centres the wait would have been a maximum of 4 weeks to approval for a surgical consultation, what about now?

Our front-desk administrator Wendy called the assessment centres and here's what she found out:

Ottawa: They outright refused to provide us with any information. They refused to tell us the length of the waiting list or how many people were on it. Wendy was polite. She explained she was calling from a physician's office and she was told that their policy, regardless of who was calling, is not to divulge any information. They also told Wendy that if she were a patient on that list that it would be their policy not to tell her when they thought we might be seen.

Windsor: They didn't really know. They told Wendy that it would be a minimum of 1-3 months but when pressed they admitted that they really had no idea and that they had well over 100 consults that hadn't even been contacted for appointments yet.

Guelph: They were extremely helpful and pleasant. Wendy was told that if we had a patient to refer that the next available date would be May 10th (a 6 month wait).

St. Joseph's Health Centre: Over the course of the past week Wendy called 4 times and left 2 messages. No one ever called us back and we were never able to reach a human being.

Humber River Regional: Wendy left 2 messages and I also had one of their staff surgeons email them a request on our behalf and so far, no one has gotten back to us. UPDATE: They finally got back to us (almost 2 weeks later) and the wait is between 12 and 14 months.