Too bad...

Need to see a specialist fast? Too bad you're not a dog.

Our pets may not be able to talk, but they can get an appointment with a primary care vet within 24 hours and a specialist within the week. "I have a friend who had a dog with cancer and it got treatment within two weeks," says Tina Kelly, an IT buyer in Waterloo, Ont. "For something like that in a human, I bet the response would've been 10 times as long."

And how. There are just 10,800 vets in this country compared to over 62,000 human doctors. But try, as a human, to get an appointment with a specialist. Try, for that matter, getting a GP — five million Canadians, about 15 per cent of the population, don't have one, while 15 per cent of those who do still report trouble receiving routine care. And a referral from your family doctor to a specialist puts you in store for a new ordeal.