Let's look back 20 years to remind ourselves of time's relentless passage - Diana, Princess of Wales died, Dolly the sheep was cloned, the Brits handed back Hong Kong to China and a book featuring a young lad called Harry Potter was published.
Oh, and here in Alberta the tall foreheads in the health department launched Wellnet - the first steps toward a provincewide electronic health record. Yes, soon enough with the clicking of a few computer keys we'd be able to look up our prescriptions, test results and book medical services while sitting in our pajamas.
Yes, 1997 seems a long way off in most respects. But not all, because we're still patiently waiting to access our provincial health records, despite the passing of two entire decades and the spending of countless millions of taxpayer money.
We were told it would be us - the public, as we were called back in 1997, or stakeholders as we now get tagged - who'd sit snuggly in the middle of this system, while all the various medical professions and services encircled us, waiting to impart anything we needed to know within seconds of us needing to know it.
That was then, this is now.
Word has come down from current Health Minister Sarah Hoffman that we'll have to wait until at least next year for access to a secure online portal where we will actually be allowed to read our own lab results and see a record of our own prescriptions.
The latest in a long line of excuses for the mindboggling delays is that the government failed to make the system receptive to mobile devices.
Oh dear, who could have anticipated people might want to see such data on their phones? Hey, this Alberta health record journey was launched a full decade before Steve Jobs wandered on stage in 2007 and announced ëwe're going to make some history today,' so you can see why smartphones might seem a bit johnny-come-lately to our health-care geniuses.
"The minister has been clear that the platform needs to be ready for mobile use before it is released to all Albertans," said the announcement, blaming the old Tories of course.
"It does appear that the former government did not anticipate how critical mobile compatibility would be in 2017."
Well, the government may have changed, but the folks running our health service here in Alberta remain essentially the same highly-paid paper shufflers who pay lip service to the words ëpublic servant,' but who worry more about the soup of the day on offer in the cafeteria than they do about the rights and desires of regular folk.
Any of those involved at a senior level in this ongoing embarrassment would have been kicked out the door years ago if they'd worked for a private operation, but not in the $20-billion a year sinkhole that is our health service.
Because, despite the rhetoric regarding ordinary Albertans being at the heart of this new system, such thinking never moves past the ëmake them feel good' stage. It's always been the same - doctors, nurses, specialists -- the whole bunch of them -- prefer we're kept in the dark, to be told only what they deem important. Who are we to interpret our blood pressure or cholesterol readings -- after all, it's only our own bodies we're dealing with.
Yes, 20 years have passed. Princess Di's still dead, Dolly the sheep's joined her, China swallowed Hong Kong and Harry Potter defeated Voldermort a while back. But we still troop into the doctor's office to have her tell us what results she thinks we need to know.
OK, let's give it another 20 years.
