Since this seems to be an area where some people really have no idea, I thought I'd share the anecdote of when my wife & I paid for private knee surgery (in Vancouver...), having already had an MRI. We saw the surgeon for a consultation the day after we contacted the private center. At that appointment, we were offered a slot for the surgery two days later, however we pushed it back a few extra days so we could prepare our home for my wife's recovery over the weekend.
I believe we paid approximately $4,000 to skip a wait list of ~18 months - when the public system surgeon's office finally contacted us to offer the consultation appointment, the date they gave was roughly a year after we had done the surgery, and you only go on the official wait list after you've had that consultation.
Yep; there's a nice new private clinic (I believe) on Cambie that lets you skip wait times for a variety of medical operations including surgery.
I'm pretty astounded by the amount of speculating and irrational fear mongering from posters who I would normally respect.
1) You don't consider surgery the first option for a man old as Desjardins. Surgery is invasive and recovery can stretch a long time especially for the elderly folks and there's a much greater chance of complications developing from said surgery. I don't believe for a second that the Canucks "pushed it off" or whatever tin-foiled hat reason people are throwing out. They waited to see whether Willie would get better while (presumably) utilizing other methods of treatment. Clearly these methods didn't work and surgery was needed.
2) Chronic pain doesn't necessarily limit people to bedrest or a complete shut down of activities; I don't see it unreasonable that Desjardins was engaging in activities while actively treating chronic pain in his hips. Just because he was on some fishing trip doesn't mean he doesn't have a medical condition. Plus, medicine has come far enough that short-term relief of symptoms like celebrex are available for people like Desjardins.
3) Organizations like the Canucks obviously skip the wait times. There are specialized medical clinics around the world that sports teams take their injured players to. I believe, for example, that majority of MLB teams take their pitchers who need a Tommy John surgerys to one specific doctor renown for operating it. These players are a huge investment; hundreds of thousands of dollars will be spent to make sure they heal properly and quickly. I guarantee Willie went to one of these clinics as soon as the doctors decided to do surgery. Please don't equate Desjardin's supposed delay for "everyone waits in line in Canada!"
People get old. They get injuries that last, especially for someone as active as Willie. Get over it people; there's no smoking gun here or any suspicious activity. I wish Willie a fast recovery.