Canada’s health care crunch has become ‘horrific and inhumane,’ doctors warn
Canada’s health care crunch has become ‘horrific and inhumane,’ doctors warn
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 healthcare system.
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 healthcare system.
Before someone says it unironically: "Adopt the US system!"
All the benefits of endless wait times, but with the potential to bankrupt any middle-class family where someone gets sick! (I realize 2 things can be bad at the same time)
US ER wait times are already 10+ hours in many places, and if you’re not turfed immediately you can still wait hours after being admitted. I’ve never understood the wait time argument as being to the advantage of the US system.
Most arguments about wait time are conflating two issues: how long from when you check in to when you see the doctor, and how long between when you try to make an appointment and the date of that appointment.
The US system is not terrible for wait times on appointments, and depending on your type of insurance it's not terrible to see a specialist. But there are some niche practices that are horrible wait times, such as endocrinologists.
The US system "solves" the office wait time issue by dinging doctors for spending more than 7 minutes per patient.
On the upside it would give me the incentive to figure out how to immigrate to northern Europe
Lemme guess .... government throws up their hands ... "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!" ...
.... I guess we'll have to privatize
More like we tried reducing funding and we are all out of ideas
More like the feds increased heathcare transfer payments by a HUGE amount in 2023 but the provinces wouldn't agree to spend ALL of the new money on healthcare ... so they can give big business tax breaks instead, then start privatizing more healthcare.
It's a never ending spiral to the bottom. :(
We've tried breaking the system worse and it's not fixing it!
Government needs to leverage mobile technology better so people can wait somewhere besides a fucking waiting room. I wouldn't give a shit if I had to wait 20 hours if I could wait at my house.
Also, the whole idea that I either wait 3 weeks to see a doctor or go to the emergency room is ridiculous. There needs to be a step in between.
Also, People need to fucking chill and stop expecting health care at fast food speed.
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.
Where are these hospitals located??
I'm looking at the Lakeridge Health (Durham Region) wait times, and they are 1 hour for Oshawa, Bowmanville, and Port Perry; 3 hours Ajax/Pickering. Very, very reasonable.
The University Health Network of hospitals in Toronto lists under 2 hours at Toronto General and an hour and a half at Toronto Western.
Markham Stouffville reports under 2 hours wait in their ER.
I would have to suspect if they haven't already reduced hours or closed the facility it's in small towns. They often can't find enough staff so they close down and residents then need to make drives to the next major city to get treatment.
Often this involves multiple hour drives on icy and snow covered roads this time of year.
That said in the greater Vancouver area it's not uncommon to wait 8+ hours in the ER for less severe cases. Often the ERs become overflow for drop in clinics that cannot handle the volumes.
Often the ER is the stopping place for those needing prescription renewals too as GPs (if one has one) can be 3-6 weeks out for bookings and I'm told there's a mismatch to the renewal length maximums.
Ideally, never get sick, old, or need meds and there's no issues... /s
8 hours to be seen is possible in greater Vancouver, but definitely not typical. Current wait times are about as bad as they’ve ever been, but avg wait times are still about 1 to 4 hours. I think it’s the rural hospitals that get really bad.
I'm really sorry to hear that the situation in BC is bad.
I'll consider myself really lucky to have had many ER visits in my life (me, my kids, etc.) and not having to wait more than 5 hours, even when the ER is super full. Broke my arm during the pandemic, and I don't think it was more than 2 hours in and out, x-rays and all!
Are people going to your ERs for minor things? Colds, flus, etc.? I've been in emergency rooms where it's hard to tell who's the patient and who's the family waiting for them. No visible pain or injuries, etc... I can only imagine non-emergencies can really clog the system up, too.
Often the ER is the stopping place for those needing prescription renewals too as GPs (if one has one) can be 3-6 weeks out for bookings and I’m told there’s a mismatch to the renewal length maximums.
That's wild. Walk-in clinic doctors can often prescribe meds. If it's a matter of waiting for your GP to renew them, that's something you take up with your pharmacy, not the ER!
There are so many levels of care before needing the ER, and I wonder if just a ton of people make the ER their first stop, even when they don't have/need to.
Pretty much everywhere except the largest metro areas. I’ve sat in Kelowna for 10 hours to get checked for appendicitis and had to come back the next day because they didn’t have techs by the time they saw me.
Pretty much everywhere except the largest metro areas
Kelowna isn't what I'd consider a small place! Over 200,000 people makes it around the same population as Oshawa (just under 200,000), and wait times right now are 1h 4min.
Historically, smaller hospitals have shorter wait times.
I'm not doubting you at all, since it's been reported quite a few times that ER wait times around the country have been extremely long. I'm simply not seeing where these hospitals are.
If it's only a handful in very specific areas, then I don't see why this can't be fixed easily. Even in Ontario, where the Ford Government withheld millions in healthcare funding, we don't seem that bad for wait times, but I'm always for providing more support for frontline workers.
Try Nanaimo. A city of over 100,000 people... there is ONE walk-in clinic in the city, and they are rarely open. You go there and it's either closed or there is a sign on the door "Accepting 10 patients today". So you go to the Nanaimo General ER and IF you're lucky, you will be seen in about 8 to 10 hours.
The worst cases are mostly small, often serving low-density rural areas—in Ontario, Chesley, Clinton, and Wingham are a few names I could find quickly that have had such severe staff shortages they've had to reduce ER hours or close temporarily (they're fairly close together, in Bruce and Huron counties, so if one of them closes the patients that would have gone to that one probably go to the others instead and make the wait times there worse). The hospitals with long wait times merely have, say, two doctors handling the ER patients where they should have three.
One part of the problem is that the doctors and nurses we do still have tend to migrate toward the larger metro areas, just like people in other lines of work. That leaves hospitals in small- to medium-sized urban areas even more understaffed, sometimes to the point that not even one doctor or RN can take a vacation without causing truly excessive wait times even if a shutdown can be avoided. In Ontario, western areas seem most affected, but the northern part of the province has been dealing with chronic medical understaffing for decades already, not just since COVID.
Nova Scotia here. Our local ER is open occasionally. Generally it is closed due to labor shortages. Can't set wait times when it's completely closed. Sometimes it's a shift sometimes it's entire weeks of closure. This summer it was closed for two months. So ER wait times...what ER?
Fast track the recognition of the credentials of foreign trained healthcare professionals. Do it yesterday!