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<\/p>\n(December 12, 2022)<\/p>\n
By: Griffin Jaeger, CBC News<\/p>\n
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A demonstration was held in Toronto Monday by The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), which represents more than 500 organizations, speaking out about what it calls \u201cinaction\u201d by the Ford Government to address an ongoing hospital crisis.\u00a0( Lorenda Reddekopp\/CBC)<\/em><\/p>\n Dozens of protesters carrying signs with words like,\u00a0“overworked, underpaid, overwhelmed, underfunded” gathered in front of a downtown Toronto hospital Monday \u2014 to speak\u00a0out against what they say is “inaction” by the Ford government amid overcrowded children’s hospitals across the province.<\/p>\n The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), which represents more than 500 organizations, staged\u00a0the demonstration at\u00a0Toronto General Hospital. The rally was one of several health-care protests across Ontario Monday and on Friday.<\/p>\n “This is beyond emergency,” said OHC executive director Natalie Mehra during\u00a0a news conference at Queen’s Park just before the protest.\u00a0She said\u00a0the Ford government\u00a0has failed\u00a0to\u00a0provide leadership and respond to Ontarians\u00a0who are in need of hope.<\/p>\n “We want to show support for the hospital workers and the health-care workers because we know how completely overstretched they are,” Mehra added.<\/p>\n The\u00a0demonstrations come as The Canadian Press reports the intensive care unit\u00a0at Toronto’s SickKids hospital is at 120 per cent capacity and has been under immense pressure for weeks.\u00a0Pediatric hospitals across Ontario are in similar situations, seeing a surge in children with COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).<\/p>\n A protester holds a sign that reads ‘Overworked, underpaid, overwhelmed, underfunded’ during a demonstration held by the Ontario Health Coalition.\u00a0(Susan Goodspeed\/CBC)<\/em><\/p>\n Mehra described\u00a0receiving frequent notices of maternity wards, ICUs and\u00a0emergency departments closing down, overwhelmed pediatric hospitals and an unprecedented crisis in public adult hospitals.<\/p>\n “What more urgent level of care is there? That’s it,” said Mehra.<\/p>\n “When the hospitals start closing those services, you are actually in collapse at that point.”<\/p>\n The demonstration also comes days after a four-year-old Simcoe, Ont. boy was flown 350 kilometres to Kingston, Ont. to receive treatment after local hospitals reached capacity.<\/p>\n At a news\u00a0conference Monday, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones, who’s also the deputy premier, said\u00a0the scenario is an example of hospitals working together to make use of\u00a0air ambulances\u00a0when there are high numbers of pediatric patients.<\/p>\n “It’s not ideal as a family to have to have a child that far away, but it is also important to appreciate that by doing that air transport, that child was able to be assessed and treated sooner,” said Jones.<\/p>\n Over the past year, the Ford government has said\u00a0it is increasing the hiring of health-care staff and will be fast-tracking international graduates to help with the unfolding hospital crisis.<\/p>\n But the OHC says\u00a0the province requires a recruitment drive that will hire tens of thousands of long-term care and hospital staff to stabilize the system.<\/p>\n Dr Raghu Venugopal, an emergency physician in Toronto, attended the protest.<\/p>\n Venugopal told CBC Toronto patients are\u00a0waiting three-to-five\u00a0days on stretchers in the emergency ward\u00a0to be admitted.\u00a0He said children are waiting\u00a0for\u00a0hours for Tylenol. And he said in one case,\u00a0a patient in her 90s\u00a0with a fractured spine and bleeding\u00a0from her head due to a fall\u00a0had to get a\u00a0specialist consultation while still\u00a0sitting in\u00a0a waiting room chair.<\/p>\n Venugopal called on the Ford government not to appeal a recent\u00a0Ontario Superior Court\u00a0ruling\u00a0that struck down Bill 124, which limited wage for public sector employees, including\u00a0nurses and other health-care workers.<\/p>\n Dr Raghu Venugopal, an emergency physician in Toronto, says the premier and health minister should spend a night with an emergency room nurse to see the crisis they’re dealing with first-hand.\u00a0(Susan Goodspeed\/CBC)<\/em><\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n His biggest advice to Premier Doug Ford and Jones:\u00a0come spend a night with an emergency room nurse.<\/p>\n “Come see for yourself what ERs are facing, what families are facing.\u00a0I think that would educate the premier and deputy premier.”<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.6683145.1670880267!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_780\/sign.jpg\")
<\/p>\n‘Come see for yourself,’ ER doctor tells politicians<\/h2>\n
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