Skillful dismantling? Perhaps I’ve imagined these sorts of reports:

“Some vulnerable canadians are experiencing difficulty in accessing acute care on a timely basis. Lengthy wait times for hospital admission from the emergency department are widely reported across the country (CBC News 2011; CTV News 2011), while surgical wait times outside those procedures prioritized by federal incentive programs have generally increased (CIHI 2012).”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999549/

You said, “ know that anecdotal reports are not the basis of scientific evidence…” Exactly so.