You can go to a private clinic and pay out of pocket. For someone middle class and lower, it's expensive, unaffordable in case of anything beyond a regular exam.

You still have to pay for the public healthcare system though.

Paying a private clinic for test and referal, however, will get you weeks-ahead for a specialist appointment or treatment in the public system, and many people do that.

And yes, joint surgery waiting lists can be ''18 months'', which is already them cheating : they deliberately stall diagnostics and referals to artificially avoid exceeding the 18 months mark.

You will hear ''sorry, the schedule is full, you will have to call back in X weeks''.

Just book me for later? No they won't. Because then the waiting lists would exceed the threshold the government set to claim they are doing well with the healthcare system. They hope you will give up and not call in X weeks.

You can go to a private clinic and pay out of pocket. For someone middle class and lower, it's expensive, unaffordable in case of anything beyond a regular exam.

You still have to pay for the public healthcare system though.

Paying a private clinic for test and referal, however, will get you weeks-ahead for a specialist appointment or treatment in the public system, and many people do that.

And yes, joint surgery waiting lists can be ''18 months'', which is already them cheating : they deliberately stall diagnostics and referals to artificially avoid exceeding the 18 months mark.

You can go to a private clinic and pay out of pocket. For someone middle class and lower, it's expensive, unaffordable in case of anything beyond a regular exam.

You still have to pay for the public healthcare system though.

Paying a private clinic for test and referal, however, will get you weeks-ahead for a specialist appointment or treatment in the public system, and many people do that.