Liza Samuel has a question: What's the point of having the world's best lifesaving technology if you can't get in to use it?

She speaks from the heart when she asks this, because medical technology helped save her husband's life.

They were on a sailboat in the Caribbean when Ernie Samuel fell ill with a violent headache. It was a bad place to get sick. There were no decent hospitals nearby, and it was New Year's Day. Nobody was at work, not even the telephone operator. As he lapsed into unconsciousness, Ms. Samuel remembers the local divemaster coming by to take a look at him. "It's all right," he said. "I think he's still alive."

It took a day and a half to get him airlifted to Miami. The hospital's MRI scanner showed spontaneous bleeding of the brain, and he had emergency surgery. He had more MRI tests and more surgery. But once he was out of danger, Ms. Samuel found that bringing him back to Canada was not an option. No one here could guarantee him access to the brain scans and tests he would need to monitor his recovery.

Magnetic resonance imaging is a sophisticated technology that provides a detailed picture of structures and organs inside the body. It is essential to good medicine. But Canada has less MRI equipment than many other developed countries, including Spain, Portugal, South Korea, Italy and Luxembourg. And in Ontario, people have to wait between eight weeks and a year for an MRI test.

"Not that I have anything against Canadian medicine," says Ms. Samuel, who is in her 60s. "But all we were offered in Canada was a bed somewhere."

They were lucky. Ernie Samuel was one of Canada's most successful entrepreneurs, and money wasn't a problem. So she took him to Chicago for therapy. "I'm sorry if I'm selfish," she remembers thinking. "But this is my husband, and I'm damn well going to take him where the best is."

It took six months before he was well enough to return to Canada. He lived here for another four years until his death. And now, Liza Samuel wants Canadians to have more access to the technology that saved his life. So her family foundation has bought an MRI for the nearby hospital in Oakville, a leafy town half an hour west of Toronto. It cost $3-million.

"This is for him," she says. "This is for all of us. It was his firm belief that you give back part of your good fortune to the country that gave it to you."

There's just one problem with her generous gift. Like most other hospitals lucky enough to have an MRI, Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial can afford to turn it on for only one shift a day.

This ridiculous situation reflects the ridiculous way that hospitals are funded. They don't get more money if more people need hips or MRIs. And none of them can afford the extra radiologists and technicians they need to run the equipment longer. "I can't bear the thought of this magnet sitting in a room with the lights turned off and the door locked for the rest of the day," says Ms. Samuel. "It should be used to reduce the lineups. And if the government can't pay, then those who use it should be able to pay whatever they can afford. And if they can't afford it, then it's free. It seems fairly obvious to me."

But it's not obvious to Roy Romanow, who claims he widely consulted Canadians about their preferences and values. In fact, his staged cross-country hearings featured the same old interest groups, with their same old attacks on anyone who might have a new idea. (A highlight was the 17-year-old girl who shouted "Profit sucks," to the loud approval of the union members in the audience.)

Ms. Samuel is no health-policy expert. She doesn't think of health care in terms of covenants or sacred trusts. And she honestly can't figure out what's the big deal with user fees if they mean that her MRI won't sit there in the dark.

"I strongly believe every Canadian has the right to choose where he or she will spend their after-tax dollars," she said yesterday at a press conference to kick off the hospital's big fundraiser. "Healthy people might choose to purchase a new car. Those who need diagnosis and treatment for illness should be able to choose to spend their own money to secure it."

Defenders of the status quo say "hard-core conservatives," presumably people like Ms. Samuel, represent no more than 25 per cent of the population. I'd bet a bag of loonies they're wrong. I'd bet that, so long as there is equal access for poor people, most of us are on Ms. Samuel's wavelength.

"I don't understand Mr. Romanow's insistence that only a paternalistic government-run organization like medicare should have the right to decide how much waiting time is dangerous for a patient," Ms. Samuel told the crowd of hard-working hospital volunteers yesterday. They gave her a standing ovation.
mwente@globeandmail.ca