shockedcanadian
Diamond Member
- Aug 6, 2012
- 36,526
- 34,430
- 2,905
This is the system some of you guys want to emulate?
20 hour waits to see a doctor in ER, not to even speak of how many health facilities are closed down permanently as the demand rises.
Ontario will be bankrupt faster than I thought.
Twenty hours waiting in the emergency room wasn't unusual for Brodie Houlette.
After the 39-year-old financial services worker contracted a heart infection in 2022, he spent months in and out of a Toronto hospital ER, waiting first for a diagnosis, then more tests, and then for admission and treatment.
Two years later, and the experience has left a profound impression on him.
"It was a wait in emergency rooms of 14,16, 20 hours," he said.
"You'd be sleeping in a bay as you waited for a room to come up … It was a disaster."
Houlette says he's paying close attention to this provincial election and wants fixing ER waits and closures to become a prominent ballot box question.
He says his experience made it clear that staffing shortages and space constraints in Ontario hospitals require urgent attention from politicians of all party stripes.
"Trump has unfortunately changed the reality of this election, from an election on health care, which is what it should be, to an election on Trump," he said. "But for average people, the system is just not working."
Post-pandemic Ontario has been grappling with long waits in many hospital emergency rooms provincewide, and some rural ER closures due to staffing shortages overnight and over the weekends.
CBC News analysis in late 2024 found that over the past three years, at least 38 Ontario hospitals with emergency rooms or urgent care centres (UCCs) have experienced closures — about one in five of 176 publicly funded facilities.
20 hour waits to see a doctor in ER, not to even speak of how many health facilities are closed down permanently as the demand rises.
Ontario will be bankrupt faster than I thought.
Twenty hours waiting in the emergency room wasn't unusual for Brodie Houlette.
After the 39-year-old financial services worker contracted a heart infection in 2022, he spent months in and out of a Toronto hospital ER, waiting first for a diagnosis, then more tests, and then for admission and treatment.
Two years later, and the experience has left a profound impression on him.
"It was a wait in emergency rooms of 14,16, 20 hours," he said.
"You'd be sleeping in a bay as you waited for a room to come up … It was a disaster."
Houlette says he's paying close attention to this provincial election and wants fixing ER waits and closures to become a prominent ballot box question.
He says his experience made it clear that staffing shortages and space constraints in Ontario hospitals require urgent attention from politicians of all party stripes.
"Trump has unfortunately changed the reality of this election, from an election on health care, which is what it should be, to an election on Trump," he said. "But for average people, the system is just not working."
Post-pandemic Ontario has been grappling with long waits in many hospital emergency rooms provincewide, and some rural ER closures due to staffing shortages overnight and over the weekends.
CBC News analysis in late 2024 found that over the past three years, at least 38 Ontario hospitals with emergency rooms or urgent care centres (UCCs) have experienced closures — about one in five of 176 publicly funded facilities.
