(Lauren Pelley/ CBC News) — It’s another busy fall in Canadian hospitals, with emergency department closures, long wait times, and ongoing staff shortages all making headlines.
The situation can turn deadly: Two people died while waiting for care at the Anna-Laberge hospital in Châteauguay, Que., just last week.
And as health-care teams remain dangerously overstretched, they’re also grappling with the pressure of what some physicians are calling a “new norm” for seasonal illnesses — a range of viral and bacterial infections all back in circulation, with COVID-19 still chief among them.
“This is probably the first year since COVID started where we are seeing the anticipated viruses, the anticipated escalation of volumes, that we saw before we were faced with a pandemic,” warned Dr. Laurie Plotnick, medical director of the emergency department at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, where the average occupancy rate was close to 160 per cent throughout much of November.
Two pediatric facilities in Montreal held a joint news conference on Wednesday to hammer home the challenges ahead, while urging families to rely on community-based clinics rather than overflowing emergency departments whenever possible. (…)