Emergency room doctors say patients are experiencing “dangerous” wait times in ERs across the country and it’s time federal and provincial governments stop pointing fingers over the “crisis” in health care and instead come up with solutions.
Hospitals across Canada are experiencing a “perfect storm” of pressures that have resulted in overcrowded emergency departments and wait times that can sometimes stretch to up to 20 hours, Dr. Rodrick Lim, medical director and section head at London Health Sciences Centre’s pediatric emergency department told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview on The West Block.
It’s every doctor’s “worst nightmare,” he said.
“The thought of anyone waiting longer than they have to in a waiting room and something happening to them because of that is every health-care worker’s nightmare,” Lim said.
“It’s just something that we don’t want to think about but, unfortunately, there are stories (about this happening) coming across the country right now.”
Front-line workers in hospitals across the country have been sounding the alarm about what they call a “crisis” in their ERs, due to a combination of factors that has forced many hospitals to close their emergency departments temporarily over the last several months.
Significant nursing shortages is one of the biggest concerns, which has led to bed closures in both emergency departments and within medical units in hospitals. This means fewer available beds and personnel to care for patients at a time when hospitals are also seeing a significant influx of sick Canadians. Many have no choice but to go to ERs as they are unable to access primary care thanks to a national shortage of family physicians.
Meanwhile, health workers already burned out from working flat-out during the last two-and-a-half years of the pandemic are now left short-staffed amid a surge in patients due to waves of COVID-19 continuing and an unusually early start to the respiratory virus season.
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