When hearing of Gavin White, and his story, it becomes readily apparent that there are problems with our health-care system.

Last November, this 17-year-old boy was paralyzed from the neck down, and placed on a ventilator. He is now well on his way to recovery from Guillain-Barré, a rare autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the nervous system.

It usually takes approximately two weeks to get a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré. In Gavin’s case, it took six weeks.

It was nearly too long.

By the time Gavin was diagnosed, he was extremely ill. He soon lost his ability to breathe on his own.

Guillain-Barré is a rare syndrome, and some delay in diagnosis is understandable, given how few physicians would see this disease in private practice.

His delay in diagnosis was further slowed, however, by the fact that when he was finally admitted to McMaster Hospital, a number of tests had to be done again, because electronic records were not available.

While we all know about the current E-Health scandal, which points to misspending, as well as a suspicious approach to awarding contracts, it is clear that the government needs to continue to make electronic records a priority.

It is also clear that wait times need further improvement, because many of the tests ordered for Gavin were too long in coming. He was admitted to hospital before he ever received an MRI.

There must be some means of helping doctors streamline the process for cases such as Gavin’s, where a healthy young man became so weak, in a matter of days.

While Gavin may still have waited for a diagnosis, we suggest that timely access to information already in his files may have made a difference.

It has taken this amazing young man more than a year to recover from the debilitating illness, and he has still not regained all of the strength and energy he once had.

While he received excellent care once a diagnosis was made, both at McMaster Hospital and Bloorview Kids Rehab, Gavin’s recovery would have been that much faster, had he received an early diagnosis.

And, had Gavin not been the kind of teenager he is — one who has worked very hard on his own recovery, in a cheerful and positive way — it may have taken even longer.

More work needs to be done by the McGuinty government to ensure that patients in this province can get early access to diagnostic testing, and to ensure that doctors have easy access to the test results, no matter where they have been filed.

May Gavin White’s experience serve as a reminder of what can happen, when diagnosis is delayed.