00:02Michael Hickey has been waiting to see a specialist
00:05about a genetic hand condition for four years.
00:08While it doesn't cause pain, it makes many tasks difficult.
00:12I type a lot and for shortening of a couple of fingers
00:15means I can't reach the keys probably, so I make a lot of mistakes.
00:18It's frustrating from that level.
00:20Around 65,000 Canberrans are waiting for a specialist appointment
00:24to see if they need to join another waitlist for surgery.
00:27It's been dubbed the waitlist for the waitlist.
00:30We do know that this is a problem.
00:32It is not an acceptable position for us to have people on a waitlist
00:35for an extended period of time and our clinicians take this very seriously.
00:40Mr Hickney says he would have gone through the private system
00:43if he'd known the wait time up front.
00:45But I could have paid cash, saved my pennies, paid cash
00:49and had the operation and been done and dusted.
00:52That's the option Billy Spencer has chosen for her five-year-old granddaughter
00:56who has suspected sleep apnea after being told the public system
01:00would take more than three years.
01:02Luckily we have the money we can afford to do it
01:04out of our retirement funds and stuff but we don't have any other choice.
01:09She needs to be assessed to begin with.
01:11Canberra Health Services will begin to contact Canberrans on the waitlist
01:15as part of a review.
01:17People's circumstances do change while they're waiting
01:19and for some people they may not require the service,
01:23for some people their needs might have changed
01:25so it's important for us to understand what that is.
01:28But Ms Spencer feels people may be frustrated by that call.
01:32I'd like to see action and I can't believe that children are having to wait
01:38or parents, grandparents are having to pay.
01:41For now, the wait continues.
01:43For now, the wait continues.
