'Titanic' staffing crisis: At least 14 Ontario hospitals closed for long weekend
toronto.ctvnews.caCanada's healthcare system was in a crisis state before Covid, but Covid and the ensuing burnout and churn of healthcare staff (and firings), have caused the system to sporadically fail. By that I mean, sporadic hospital closures, inability to get an ambulance for days, year long waits for specialists and even family doctors in some places (montreal). It's crazy. And it's only going to get worse as hospitals have to take more of the burden from people going to ER's because no family doctors are available, etc.
During the initial COVID outbreak, did Canada allocate huge sums of money ostensibly to shore up the medical system like we did here in the U.S.? Where did all of it go? Certainly none to nurse's salaries.
No. In general, Canadians just lost access to the medical system. Surgeries delayed, family doctors switching to only telehealth. Even now, in Vancouver — for my family doctor it would be a two week wait for a 10 minute phone call, followed by another two week wait to be seen in person (if he decided that was needed). Any type of non emergency walk in clinic is generally full within the first few minutes, due to line ups before opening. So for many, the only chance of seeing a doctor within a month your best option is waiting 7-12 hours in an emergency room.
This is generally not my experience in Ontario. I've been to my family doctor and the ER multiple times during COVID and after and although the ER can be a multiple hour wait for minor things like a fever it's still pretty speedy for serious injuries. I haven't needed any elective surgery but checkups like heart ultrasounds were still only a week or two wait.
If anything, my dentist has been the most impacted by COVID. They're booked solid for at least a month to six weeks.
Each province has its own health system so it's a bit difficult to generalize across them.
Don't know about the roc but in Quebec the order of doctors is infested with unethical personel like M. Barrette and M. Couillard who negotiated their own salaries and kept the traditional rejection of change on how doctors are trained, what nurses are allowed to do, etc.
It is baffling to me as to how doctors are allowed to keep this monopoly on care and behave as if hell bent on perpetuating an eternal crisis of scarcity among the profession. It ends up with doctors being paid at least 100$/h when cost of living is nowhere near that.
It is also my anecdata that almost half the doctors I've met are assholes (3/7). Probably doesn't help to create a great work environment.