‘Terrible’ and ‘shocking’.
These are two words used by Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates to describe wait times at hospitals and the lack of access to physicians in the region and the province.
“It’s the worst Ontario has ever been in terms of healthcare," Gates told The Local, a sister publication of ThoroldToday, pointing to the statistics in a recent article published by The Trillium, a Village Media publication and affiliate of ThoroldToday.
One in every 10 patients admitted to a hospital in Ontario from an emergency department waits at least two days before they get a bed, according to an internal government document obtained by The Trillium.
Ontario Health tracks and charts emergency department metrics monthly. While the figures are commonly shared in healthcare administration in a “provincial summary” report, the document is labelled “not to be distributed without express permission from OH,” said The Trillium’s story.
All of the doctors who spoke with The Trillium identified the time it takes to admit patients as the core problem and said it’s due to a lack of available beds. It includes charts showing how Ontario Health collects its data, broken down by patient type, such as those who are admitted to the hospital, and includes high-acuity patients — those who require a high level of care — who are not admitted.
Bill 124, which at one point capped nurses’ wages at a one per cent increase — it has been overturned by an Ontario court — impacted how healthcare is delivered, said Gates. Bill 60, the Conservative government’s plan to expand the privatization of healthcare will also have negative impacts..He pointed to private agencies pulling nurses from public systems by offering them much more money as a contributor to the problem.
“They are really trying to destroy our public healthcare system,” said Gates. “They’re creating the crisis by not funding hospitals properly.”
Niagara-on-the-Lake’s hospital closed in 2015, leaving residents to travel to Niagara Falls or St. Catharines for an emergency room.
For a town with a high senior population, this is problematic, said Gates, also pointing to a fight in Fort Erie regarding its urgent care centre being slated for closure and residents of that town being in a similar situation — having to travel long distances for care, and putting more stress on other Niagara hospitals.
To ease pressure on emergency rooms, places like Fort Erie and Port Colborne need to retain their sites, he said.
“The best way to do that is to make sure our urgent care centres are open 24/7,” said Gates, adding that local doctors and nurses are working as hard as they can but are becoming burnt out.
In Niagara-on-the-Lake, Gates has supported the town’s efforts to bring in a nurse practitioner to assist the community with its medical needs, which the province at one point promised to fund, but so far hasn’t followed through.
Coun. Sandra O’Connor has been highly involved on this file. It’s been a year and a half since the province gave the municipality, in writing, notice that the government would be equipping the community with a nurse practitioner.
“Everybody is very frustrated because we don’t know where the holdup is,” she told The Local, adding that this would be another way to reduce the number of trips to one of the three emergency rooms in Niagara. Through the region’s physician recruitment program, the town recently brought in two new family doctors — but O’Connor estimates there are thousands in town who still don’t have one, or have to travel outside the region to see theirs.
The Canadian Medical Association says many emergency rooms across the country are overflowing and patients across Canada are waiting far too long to receive necessary care. “The scene is not new, but unless we make major systemic changes, it will continue to repeat itself,” wrote CMA president Dr. Kathleen Ross.
“Despite the tireless efforts of physicians, nurses and other health providers, testimonies from around the country illustrate that patients in some jurisdictions are waiting as long as 20 hours or longer to receive care,” she said.
The CMA believes it is “well past time to transform and rebuild” the healthcare system, including investing upstream in team-based primary care.
The association is calling on provinces and territories to prioritize signing and implementing action plans to significantly increase access, improve working conditions and modernize Canada’s health systems.
Niagara Health programs and services, especially its emergency departments, like most hospitals across the province, are “under critical pressure as we deal with high patient volumes, long wait times and sicker patients,” the health system said in a statement to The Local.
On several occasions in recent weeks, Niagara Health has seen a record breaking 600-plus patients a day visiting its three emergency departments — Welland, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls. “That’s compared to an average of closer to 415,” said the statement.
Preliminary data suggests that so far this year, wait times to see a doctor have increased by nearly two hours.
Niagara Health did not provide an exact figure when it comes to what the average wait time is at the three sites, but the many horror stories makes it obvious how bad the situation can be at times — one Niagara resident recounted a 14-hour wait for her mother with chest pains, during which time the St. Catharines emergency room appeared to shut down for about four hours, while patients were taken from the emergency department on stretchers, presumably to other hospitals.
There are a number of factors outside the hospital that contribute to wait times, said Niagara Health.
“We are caring for patients for non-emergency matters in our ED (emergency department) because they do not have access to a family doctor or other primary care provider,” said Niagara Health in its statement.
According to Niagara Region’s data, the region is short more than 100 primary care providers. “Further, on any given day, we have up to 100 patients waiting in hospital beds for services to become available in the community, including home care and long-term care settings,” said Niagara Health.
“This means patients remain on stretchers in the EDs, where they are cared for by our staff and physicians while they wait for community beds to become available. This, in turn, leads to longer wait times.”
The increase in seasonal respiratory illness plays a significant role in the larger than usual volumes being witnessed, but the health system is also seeing sicker
people seeking care, “grappling with an ongoing shortage of health human resources and providing care to patients who would be better suited to see a primary care provider.”
Niagara Health is “struggling with its own physician shortages,” including in emergency departments, like all hospitals across the country, they said.
“We understand that this is a difficult situation for patients, families and our staff. We ask for kindness and patience as our teams work
tirelessly to accommodate our patients,” reads the statement.
There is no easy fix, according to Niagara Health.
These pressures have “existed for decades” and are related to a number of factors including an aging population, an increase in chronic conditions and health human resources shortages both in the hospital and in the community.
“Solving this issue is going to take input and innovative ideas from all partners.”
Niagara Health says they are adding new staff to its emergency departments, including social workers and technicians, trained paramedics who work in collaboration with nurses to assist with basic assessments, monitoring, interventions and care for stable, offloaded patients.
They are also working on programs like Fit-to-Sit, which identifies patients who are stable enough to be offloaded by ambulances directly to the waiting room, where they are monitored until they can see a doctor.
Also in the works is “innovative programming” such as SCOPE, a platform through which primary care providers can better link their patients to a range of services and specialists.
“All of these initiatives are meant to help improve flow across the hospitals, including in the EDs.”
