TORONTO – According to data collected in October 2023 by Health Quality Ontario (a provincial agency that monitors health standards), patients admitted to Ontario hospitals spent an average of almost 22 hours waiting in the emergency room for an inpatient bed and only 23% of patients were admitted to hospital via the emergency room within the hospital itself within target time of 8 hours.
Third-world numbers, as confirmed by the words of Dr. Raghu Venugopal, an emergency doctor who works in three hospitals in Toronto. “Already an eight-hour wait time destroys any idea of what acceptable medical care is” in Canada, says the doctor who doesn’t blame emergency room staff, but says the worsening trend in Ontario hospitals is making almost impossible to meet Canadian national health standards. “We as a nation are failing children, women, seniors and regular patients with this type of situation,” Venugopal told CBC, noting that the lack of emergency and non-emergency hospital beds, systemic staffing shortages, worsening spread of vaccines and respiratory hygiene among the Ontario population and the shortage of primary care doctors are putting pressure on an already strained system.
Further confirmation comes from Dr. Carolyn Snider representing the Canadian Association of Emergency Doctors, according to whom waiting times are the worst she has seen in the last twenty years. “In my twenty years as an emergency physician, wait times have never been longer than they are now.”
The high stress of emergency room environments and the lack of incentive to stay in the field are driving professionals to leave, says Dr. Kyle Vojdani, chief and medical director of the emergency department at Michael Garron Hospital. “We are seeing increasing amounts of violence directed against healthcare workers, and the reality is that there are many other options for healthcare workers to practice and work,” Vojdani says, adding that the pay that emergency room professionals receive often does not recognize the additional risk and stress that job entails.
The reassurances from the Ontario government, which promises investments and initiatives to improve the situation, are of no avail: no one believes them anymore. In a recent survey of 774 hospital workers by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) conducted by Nanos, the overwhelming majority said they do not believe the provincial government will make improvements to health care in the coming years. Additionally, 6 in 10 responded that they were exhausted, while 2 in 5 said they dread going to work and are thinking about leaving their job. Which will mean a further worsening of an already disastrous situation.
Photo by Robert Linder on Unsplash
