Health Care, good & not so good

I've had 2 dealings with the health care industry in the last day that couldn't be more different!

Yesterday I took our eldest son (4.5 yrs) to the doctor for his sleep apnoea. He has always been a snorer, but over the last couple of months we have noticed his breathing is completely obstructed for up to 20 secs a time, multiple times each minute. This means he is not getting any oxygen whilst obstructed and so is prevented from going into a deep sleep because he keeps waking up gasping. He's also showing signs of being unusually tired when he wakes up in the morning. Anywayyyyyyy, we got a referral to an ENT consultant, and so begins my whinge....
I dropped the referral in to the ENT doctors office, where his receptionist informed me that, as it (the referral) looked 'standard' it would likely be 6 months before I could get an APPOINTMENT to see the specialist. Apparently the doctor personally evaluates all referrals and decides on who should have an appointment and when. Totally understandable and I realise that there are far more urgent cases than ours, but, 6 MONTHS! It goes to show how totally inadequate our resources for specialist health care are where we live, and why so many people head to the city 2 hrs away for treatment.

My second encounter with the health care industry was today when I took my 11 month old daughter to the Accident & Emergency Dept at our local hospital. She had slipped and put her top 2 teeth through her tongue, leaving a long gaping hole. It had stopped bleeding and she wasn't particularly bothered by it, but I was concerned of the possible infection risk so thought I'd get it checked out.
We went to the Triage nurse desk (1st point of call in A&E) and explained the problem. The nurse took one look at it and said that it wouldn't be sutured as it wasn't severe enough, though she would check with the doctor straight away to save us waiting and to then be told the same thing. 5 mins later another nurse came and had a look at M's tongue and said the same thing. She said that even when a tongue is almost cut through and bits hanging off (her words!) that they are reluctant to suture (for obvious reasons, the tongue is VERY difficult to sew!) but again, she would check with a doctor. I said that I thought that would be the case and not to worry about a doctors opinion. So we left after about 15 minutes total!
How different those 2 experiences were! On one hand I'm told it will be months and months before my son can be seen by a specialist, let alone treated and on the other hand my daughter is seen, assessed and discharged in a public hospital dept within minutes.