Here's the liver transplant info from Canada

http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/en/media_19sept2001_fig2_e.htm...

you'll note that as money became a problem, the wait time doubled between 1995 and 2000

Here's the statistics on how many died waiting for the transplants

http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/en/media_19sept2001_fig1_e.htm...

You'll note it steadily rose and costs were 'contained'.....

Of course, part of the problem is they don't pay docs well....

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/168/6/760-b

"It's hard to say whether someone died because a transplant surgeon wasn't readily available," says Dr. Philip Belitsky, director of transplantation services at Capital Health, the province's largest health authority. "We'd like to believe that wasn't the case, but it may have been a contributing factor in a small number of cases."

In 2001, the year the program was suspended indefinitely, 4 patients in Atlantic Canada died while awaiting a liver transplant. Last year, there were 10 deaths. However, Belitsky says this is only "a 1-year experience — we have to be careful not to draw conclusions from this."

Capital Health is currently recruiting 2 surgeons, the minimum needed to resurrect the QE II's liver transplant program, which will serve all of Atlantic Canada. The senior surgery position has proved difficult to fill. "We are looking on more than 1 continent," notes Belitsky."

Of course, not many want to become or stay docs in Canada due to the low pay, the high work load, and the reams of regulations on what they can and can't do.

England has an even worse problem. Really acute shortages.

It's amazing France has any doctors, when they pay them $50,000/yr.

Of course, both Canada and France pay the medical school costs to train the docs. But why be a doc when you graduate in France with a PhD in history and get a cushy government job making $80,000/yr?

Of course, don't smoke any grass....

http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=9689

"Although Canadian transplant centres are more willing than those in the United States, not everyone says yes to liver patients who smoke marijuana, and a University of Alberta researcher says that decision-making process is unacceptable.

Karen Kroeker, along with three other students at various universities, sent out surveys to a number of transplant clinics across the United States and Canada. Results found that the difference between the two countries were obvious in some patient groups: around 60 per cent of Canadian centres would either do the surgery or consider it for a liver transplant patient who smoked marijuana, while 70 per cent of U.S. transplant programs said absolutely not. Kroeker also found that patients in both countries, who have no social support-meaning they have no family, friends or a social worker-aren't likely to receive the organ they need. "

t.