So the Calgary Flames jumped to the head of the line when it came to H1N1 vaccinations. Are we surprised? It’s long been a practice in Canada where professional and semi-pro athletes get preferential medical treatment. They get a MRI within hours while the rest of us wait months. Elective surgery comes within days while we wait forever. Yes you can say that their job depends on it but a lot of people whose jobs depend on being able to work pain free get stuck on long waiting lists and have to go on disability.
So naturally the team doctors assumed the Calgary Flames could just jump the queue and I assume the person who set up the private clinic thought it was business as usual like it had been so many times in the past. Now you have the Premier determined to “get to the bottom of it” but the reality is that this kind of stuff has been going on since the winter of 1980 when the Calgary Flames moved from Atlanta and stuff like this happens to almost all pro sports teams.
If Premier Ed Stelmach wants to get to the bottom of it, why not show waiting times for the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders, and the Calgary Flames for surgical and medical procedures and compare it the rest of the population who does not play professional sports. I assume they jumped the queue in almost all cases.
