It seems to me that reference #1 titled "OECD iLibrary: Statistics / Health at a Glance / 2011 / Waiting time of four months or more for elective surgery" linking to http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2011-en/06/08/index.html?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/health_glance-2011-59-en&containerItemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2Fhealth_glance-2011-59-en&accessItemIds=/content/book/health_glance-2011-en&mimeType=text/html does not support the claim that it is supposedly a reference for. That page does however link to data which shows (based on the 2010 data from OECD countries) that New Zealand is middle of the pack for people who experienced waiting times of four weeks or more to see a specialist. This is only 19% higher than the United states, and only 22% higher than Germany (which is reported to have the lowest percentage of persons waiting 4 or more weeks.) None of this seems to support the stated "costly or difficult operations often require long waiting list delays unless the treatment is medically urgent" nor does there appear to be any statement supporting that claim at the link which is used for the reference. I suggest that we remove the comment unless a new data source can be provided that shows an empirical difference where New Zealand is notable in this regard when compared to other OECD countries or the world at large. As it stands, the claim seems unfounded, and the data that is referenced has been superseded by newer 2015 data that similarly does not seem to back the claim.
Darthyoshiboy (talk) 10:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
