Emergency rooms in crisis, doctors warn

'It truly is dire': Hospitals struggling amid patient surge

- MEGAN OGILVIE AND KENYON WALLACE

Emergency departments across Canada are in a full-fledged crisis brought about by overcrowding and chronic staffing shortages, as they struggle to care for an “avalanche of patients” with respiratory illnesses, says the country’s largest association of medical doctors.

In a special statement released Thursday, the Canadian Medical Association calls upon the country’s ministers of health to swiftly implement solutions to ease long wait times in emergency departments that it says are “woefully underfunded.”

“No one wants to spend 20 hours waiting for the care they or their loved ones need,” the statement said.

“Canadians are struggling to access care when they need it,” CMA president Dr. Kathleen Ross told the Star in an interview.

“And our providers are really pushed to the brink of trying to hold things together,” she said.

Across the country, there are signs emergency departments (EDs) are struggling. In Quebec, for example, the average occupancy rate in EDs continues to sit well above 100 per cent. In Ontario, many hospitals, including those in Toronto, report long wait times. Last week, an Ottawa hospital ED told patients it would take nearly 20 hours to be assessed by a doctor.

The most recent data on ED waits in Ontario, from November, shows that patients admitted to hospital spent an average of 22.4 hours waiting for an in-patient bed; just 23 per cent of patients admitted to hospital from the ED got a bed within the target time of eight hours.