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Dozens of protesters carrying signs with words like, “overworked, underpaid, overworked, underfunded” gathered in front of a downtown Toronto hospital on Monday — to speak out against what they say Ford government’s “inaction” amid overcrowded children’s hospitals across the province .
The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), representing more than 500 organizations, held a demonstration at Toronto General Hospital. The rally was one of several health care protests across Ontario Monday and Friday.
“This is beyond emergency,” OHC executive director Natalie Mehra said at a press conference at Queen’s Park ahead of the protest. He said the Ford government has failed to provide leadership and respond to Ontarians who need hope.
“We want to show support for hospital workers and healthcare workers because we know how overstretched they are,” Mehra added.
The demonstrations come as The Canadian Press reports that the intensive care unit at Toronto’s SickKids hospital is at 120 percent capacity and has been under intense pressure for weeks. Pediatric hospitals across Ontario are in similar situations, seeing an influx of children with COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Mehra described receiving frequent notices about the closure of maternity wards, ICUs and emergency departments, overwhelmed pediatric hospitals and an unprecedented crisis in public adult hospitals.
“What’s the more urgent level of care out there? That’s it,” Mehra said.
“When hospitals start shutting down those services, you really collapse at that point.”
WATCH | Health care crisis ‘will not be a quick fix,’ says CMA chief
The president of the Canadian Medical Association, Dr. Alika Lafontaine said the health care system needs more money, ‘but it has to go to the right places’ and it won’t be a ‘quick fix.’
The demonstration also comes days after four-year-old Simcoe, Ont. the boy was flown 350 kilometers to Kingston, Ont. to receive treatment after local hospitals reach capacity.
At a news conference Monday, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, who is also the deputy premier, said the scenario is an example of hospitals working together to use air ambulances when there are high numbers of cases. pediatric patients.
“It’s not ideal as a family to have a child that far away, but it’s also important to appreciate that by making that aircraft, that child was able to be diagnosed and treated earlier,” Jones said.
Over the past year, the Ford government has said it is increasing the hiring of health care staff and will be fast-tracking international graduates to help with the worsening hospital crisis.
But the OHC said the province needs a recruitment drive to hire thousands of long-term care and hospital staff to stabilize the system.
‘Come, see for yourself,’ said the ER doctor to the politicians
Dr Raghu Venugopal, an emergency physician in Toronto, attended the protest.
Venugopal told CBC Toronto patients wait three to five days on stretchers in the emergency ward to be admitted. He said the children were waiting hours for Tylenol. And he said in one case, a patient in his 90s with a fractured spine and bleeding from his head from a fall had to consult a specialist while still sitting in a chair in the waiting room.
Venugopal called on the Ford government not to appeal the recent Ontario Superior Court decision that struck down Bill 124, which caps wages for public sector employees, including nurses and other health care workers.
“That was a knife in nurses’ spleens. Now that that bill has been squashed in court, it’s time to let that go. Number 2, we have to keep increasing capacity in hospitals,” he said.
His biggest advice to Premier Doug Ford and Jones: come spend the night with an emergency room nurse.
“Come, see what the ERs are facing, what the families are facing. I think that would educate the premier and deputy premier.”
At a news conference in the Ottawa Valley Monday morning, Premier Doug Ford was asked to address the government’s commitment to ensure the province has adequate access to health care, especially in rural areas.
“It’s really critical that we never forget rural Ontario, making sure they have the right funding to have care across the board,” Ford said. The premier added that 14,000 more nurses have been added this year and that his government has increased the health care budget.
“This year alone, we are building medical universities in Ontario for the first time in decades and we will continue to ensure that the needs and and the requirements to keep all of rural Ontario healthy. [are met].”
‘We’re really worried’
Back in Toronto, Mehra said the OHC had never seen anything like the state of health care today, describing the situation as an unprecedented emergency.
“The public doesn’t realize the situation we’re in unless somebody tells them, and they’re not told.” he says.
“Think about it [Ford] will provide some hope and light at the end of the tunnel for struggling health care workers, who are straining under the burden of patients in these hospitals around us. But nothing like that”
According to Mehra, Ontario funds its hospitals at the lowest rate of any province in the country.
The OHC says the Ford government doubled funding for private for-profit clinics in the last quarter of the most recent financial year in an attempt to privatize services.
“We’re really worried,” Mehra said.
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