QUEEN’S PARK – With Ontario’s hospitals reporting emergency room closures and critical nursing shortages, Premier Doug Ford has announced a new relief plan allowing patients to diagnose themselves following a self-serve model.
The plan will see Ontario patients who enter an emergency room presented with the option to either wait multiple hours to be seen by a doctor or nurse, or waive all legal rights in order to immediately access medical equipment and diagnose themselves.
“Folks, Ontario’s hospitals offer some of the best healthcare in the world,” explained Ford to assembled reporters. “And now, you can all offer some of that healthcare to yourselves, even faster, and without requiring us to spend any money on additional staff.”
Ford then demonstrated Ontario Hospitals’ new Self Serve Medi-Kiosks, “You know how everyone loves checking out their own groceries using the scanner robot? Well this is just like that, except with your own organs and broken bones.” Ford then instructed reporters to ignore the debit scanner on each Medi-Kiosk, explaining “that’s not part of it. Yet.”
Upon choosing the Self Serve option at an Ontario ER, patients will be encouraged to diagnose their own ailments by using a stethoscope, an x-ray machine, and access to Web MD. From there, each patient will also be offered a stethoscope, gauze (limit 2 rolls per customer), and complimentary morphine, sponsored for a limited time by Mattamy Homes Property Development Ltd.
“Lemme tell ya, that morphine is even more delicious than a Timmie’s breakfast sandwich, who also happen to be our next sponsor,” added Ford.
After patients are finished diagnosing and treating themselves, the self -serve kiosks will ask how many plastic bags they would like to purchase “so you can carry home anything that fell out of or off of you.”
While many have pointed out that Ford’s new Self Serve ERs will offer substandard or “likely fatal” emergency care, many inside the Ontario Government are already hailing the initiative as a massive success.
“These self-serve ERs are a massive step forward in our plans to revolutionize hospitals,” noted Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones. “For years now we’ve been trying to privatize everything by slowly steering hospitals into the ditch, but they’re bound to implode even faster if citizens are operating on themselves.”
Critics of the new Self Serve ERs have been quick to register their disapproval.
“I would explain all of the ways that this is a crime against humanity,” explained U of T public policy expert Nasim Wethen, “but I was in a bike accident on the way over here, and I have to teach myself how to reset a femur asap.”
Should Ontarians not feel safe entering a crowded self-serve ER hospitals will also offer a curbside option where patients can walk up to a jar, conveniently located on the sidewalk, and just grab a fistful of loose pills.
