Canada’s health care crunch has become ‘horrific and inhumane,’ doctors warn
As Canada’s health-care system grapples with yet another season of respiratory illnesses, doctors are raising the alarm over its ability to stay afloat.
Emergency departments across the country are overwhelmed with patients waiting many hours to receive care due to a mix of factors including staffing shortages, overcrowding and a surge of viruses at this time of year.
ER doctors say this season is the worst they’ve ever seen, and are now calling for real action to fix the crisis plaguing Canada’s health-care system.
“The situations from coast to coast to coast, they’re horrific and inhumane,” said Dr. Trevor Jain, an ER doctor with the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP).
Both Jain and Dr. Kathleen Ross from the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) spoke as part of a panel on The West Block with Global News’ Eric Sorensen Friday. The CMA released a statement Thursday saying unless major systemic changes are made, the problem in emergency departments will keep unfolding.
“I mean, the last 20 years, the emergency departments have become all things for everybody all the time because we’re always open, and the system is starting to reflect that crisis,” Jain said. “You know, if you talk to any emergency department, we can stand being busy. We don’t mind being busy, but overcrowding kills and that’s what we’re starting to see,”
Jain says Canadians are waiting in emergency departments with serious illnesses for 10 to up to 32 hours. The CMA also reported an approximate 20-hour wait time in some parts of the country. Two Canadian patients have even died this season waiting in an ER at a hospital on Montreal’s south shore.
“We really have a crisis of access on our hands now,” Ross said in the panel.
She says
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