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<\/p>\n(December 12, 2022)<\/p>\n
By: News Staff, City News Everywhere<\/p>\n
Demonstrations took place in three cities Monday afternoon as the Ontario Health Coalition spoke out against what it calls inaction by the Ford government.<\/p>\n
One of the rallies was held outside the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre on University Avenue in Toronto, with others taking place in Waterloo and Windsor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hospitals are beyond crisis at this point, it really is a catastrophe,\u201d said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got emergency departments closing temporarily across the province as they don\u2019t have enough staff, maternity units closing because they don\u2019t have enough staff \u2026 overwhelmed pediatric hospitals, staff leaving by the thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A demonstration being held outside the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre on University Avenue in Toronto on Dec. 12, 2022. CITYNEWS\/Ryan Vallee<\/em><\/p>\n This comes as the ICU at Toronto\u2019s SickKids is at 120 per cent capacity and has been under immense pressure for weeks.<\/p>\n Toronto\u2019s Hospital for Sick Children says cancelling surgeries that allowed staff to redeploy to its jammed intensive care unit has saved lives.<\/p>\n The head of the ICU, Dr. Steven Schwartz, says the difficult move to cancel surgeries recently has paid off as the hospital deals with a surge of young patients with respiratory illnesses. He says it allowed the hospital to implement a team-based care model that shifts away from its one-nurse-to-one-patient model.<\/p>\n Pediatric hospitals across Ontario are in similar situations as they\u2019ve seen a huge surge in children with respiratory illnesses. A severe staffing crunch, especially in highly specialized units such as intensive care, has compounded the problem.<\/p>\n The Ontario Health Coalition says it has never seen public healthcare in such an extreme crisis, pointing to the temporary closures of emergency departments, along with sick and disabled children being turned away from overwhelmed pediatric emergency departments.<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost 100 emergency departments have been temporarily closed in recent months, along with ICUs, maternity services and others. These closures are continuous,\u201d the coalition said.<\/p>\n \u201cSick and disabled children are being turned away from overwhelmed pediatric emergency departments. More than 1,000 occurrences of Code Zero, in which all ambulances are taken, and there are none left in a region, have happened in the last year in Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n Ontario\u2019s Health Coalition says patients\u2019 surgeries and diagnostic tests continue to get cancelled and delayed, and a large number of nurses, health professionals and other staff have left.<\/p>\n \u201cHow dare the Ford government to downplay and deny the crisis or play political games with it and blame everyone but themselves,\u201d said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are people\u2019s lives, their health \u2014 children\u2019s lives and health, the elderly\u2019s lives and health. This is not the time for games, denial or lies. Enough. We demand action to address this crisis, and we demand the Ford government stop using the crisis as cover to privatize our public hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n