Dec. 22, 2023
Overcrowded emergency rooms are frustrating patients and staff in parts of the country as respiratory illness season exacerbates long waits for care.
Combined with bed shortages, an aging population and a lack of community care, it’s converging to create a crisis, health professionals say.
“Wait times are through the roof,” Erin Ariss, president of the Ontario Nurses Association, said Wednesday. “Nurses are beginning their shifts in the morning and coming on to emergency departments that are full or over capacity with admitted patients.”
Packed emergency rooms are also a major concern in Quebec, where Health Minister Christian Dube said Wednesday that the public should avoid going to ERs altogether if they can, and instead seek care at family medicine clinics, or clinics led by nurse practitioners. He made the announcement after a group representing chief doctors in the province’s ERs sent a letter saying overcrowding is “out of control.”