Saturday, June 10, 2023
manilastandard.net
ADVERTISEMENT
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
manilastandard.net
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Nursing shortage forces emergency room closures across Canada

AFPbyAFP
October 11, 2022, 12:00 pm
in News, World News
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Email

An acute nursing shortage is clogging or even closing hospital emergency rooms across Canada, pushing an already stressed national health system to the brink with potentially severe consequences for patient care.

In this file photo taken on April 28, 2021 A nurse holds her head as nurses care for patients suffering from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Humber River Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, in Toronto. An acute nursing shortage is clogging or even closing hospital emergency rooms across Canada, pushing an already stressed national health system to the brink with potentially severe consequences for patient care. Burnout from the Covid pandemic, abuse from patients and salary discontent have seen nursing staff quitting their jobs in droves, and experts say the situation is only likely to worsen. AFP

Burnout from the Covid-19 pandemic, abuse from patients, and salary discontent have seen nursing staff quitting their jobs in droves, and experts say the situation is only likely to worsen.

The impact on emergency care is such that Ottawa police recently had to take a shooting victim to hospital in their squad car, rather than wait for an ambulance, and an elderly woman who fell and broke her hip was forced to wait six hours for help from paramedics based 100 kilometers (62 miles) away.

Over the summer and into the fall, staffing shortages meant dozens of emergency rooms were forced to close—sometimes for a night or a weekend, sometimes longer.

Wait times to see an ER doctor have soared to 12, 16, 20 hours—or more.

“They’re numb, deflated and feeling hopeless,” said Cathryn Hoy, president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association. Herself a nurse for 20 years, she described the situation as “critical.”

Amelie Inard, 32, was taken to an ER in Montreal this week, in extreme pain and peeing blood.

The place was packed, and an overwrought nurse told her to describe her condition “in one sentence, really quickly, because of how busy they were,” Inard said.

She eventually left in frustration, without seeing a doctor.

Hospital workloads are rising, Hoy said, along with patients’ exasperation over extended wait times, leading to a spiking of violence against nurses.

Several nurses told AFP they had been punched, scratched or spat on, and had trays, dishes and feces thrown at them.

‘Crazy conditions’

In the capital Ottawa, ambulances were unavailable on more than 1,000 occasions from January to July, as paramedics were stuck waiting to unload patients at crowded ERs.

A hospital in Peterborough, east of Toronto, in the past week was forced to treat patients on gurneys in the parking lot because its ER was full, said Hoy.

In Manitoba, doctor Merril Pauls said there had been “multiple times throughout the summer when we had to shut down beds in the emergency room” at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre because of the nursing shortage. 

On one recent Sunday, he said, “We had too many people coming in and had no place to put them. We literally were double-bunking critical patients in a resuscitation bay.

“Our nurses are really working in crazy conditions.”

It’s a “really significant phenomenon going on across the country,” the doctor added, and it’s “getting worse.”

High turnover

A recent survey by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the country’s largest labor union, found that 87 percent of nurses have considered leaving their job “because of the thankless and grueling working conditions.”

“Even new graduates are quitting,” Hoy said.

Federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos has vowed to make it easier for foreign credentials to be recognized. That could help 11,000 internationally trained doctors and nurses get jobs in their field in Canada.

But that won’t be nearly enough, with 34,400 nursing positions now vacant, according to government data.

Compounding the problem, many Canadians—like Inard—don’t have a family doctor and turn to emergency rooms for care.

“It’s just so difficult to find a family doctor,” she said.

And a frequent shortage of regular hospital beds often means long waits to transfer patients out of ERs to wards.

Ontario passed a bill at the end of September permitting transfers of patients awaiting long-term care to facilities up to 150 kilometers away. 

Provincial Health Minister Sylvia Jones said it would “ease pressures on crowded emergency departments.”

But critics say it could force frail, elderly people into care homes far from their loved ones.

For now, almost everyone needing treatment is eventually seen. But delays can pose long-term consequences for patients’ health.

“If a stroke patient doesn’t get access to a clot-busting medicine fast, brain cells will die and the patient will end up being more disabled than they would have been,” Pauls said.

Serious infections can be deadly if not treated in time. So, too, can cancers and other diseases, he added.

Pauls recalled routinely telling discharged patients “to come back if things get worse.”

“But now they laugh at us. They say: ‘You’re crazy. There’s no way I’m going to go through this again.'”

Tags: Canadaclosuresemergency roomnurseshortage
ADVERTISEMENT
AFP

AFP

Related Posts

On Lampedusa, Red Cross takes over grim migrant hub

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 12:00 pm
0
8
Rapper Drakeo the Ruler fatally stabbed at LA festival

The reception centre on the Italian island of Lampedusa is for many migrants their first taste of Europe after crossing...

Read more

How Trump indictment could impact White House race

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 10:00 am
0
8

The latest twist in Donald Trump's attritional war with US law enforcement, as with so much else in the former...

Read more

Children lost for 40 days in Colombian Amazon found alive

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 9:01 am
0
8
Children lost for 40 days in Colombian Amazon found alive

The four Indigenous children who had been missing for more than a month in the Colombian Amazon rainforest after a...

Read more

UK former PM Johnson rewards Brexit allies with honours

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 8:30 am
0
8
UK former PM Johnson rewards Brexit allies with honours

Boris Johnson's long-awaited resignation honours list was published on Friday, with the British former leader rewarding his key Brexit allies...

Read more

‘A test of humanity’: saving animals in flood-hit Kherson

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 8:00 am
0
8
‘A test of humanity’: saving animals in flood-hit Kherson

In Ukraine's flood-hit city of Kherson, volunteer Sergei Ludensky balances on logs floating in the dark green water, looking at...

Read more

20,000 flee restive Mayon

byCharles Dantesand2 others
June 10, 2023, 1:05 am
0
8
20,000 flee restive Mayon

Blast at summit sign of possible eruption as Albay declares state of calamity MAYON AGLOW. Mayon Volcano's crater is aglow...

Read more

Print Edition

View More

Recent Posts

  • Logistics platform prioritizes interest of delivery partners
  • CSR campaign expands into a livelihood project in urban and rural communities
  • BPO firm calls for new round of donations for the underprivileged
  • Traveling with your little ones in Singapore? Here’s what you can do in the Lion City
  • How to stay connected when going out of town
  • Cozy family staycations this June
  • Defiant Butler insists Heat will fight all the way
  • Pixar returns with immigrant fable ‘Elemental’

Advertisement

Latest News

Cozy family staycations this June

byManila Standard
June 10, 2023, 6:00 pm
0
8
Cozy family staycations this June

June greets the metro with cloudy skies and sweater weather, perfect for staying in bed for a few more minutes,...

Read more

Defiant Butler insists Heat will fight all the way

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 2:00 pm
0
8
Defiant Butler insists Heat will fight all the way

At the end of a season in which they have overturned the odds more than once to  reach the NBA...

Read more

Pixar returns with immigrant fable ‘Elemental’

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 1:00 pm
0
8
Pixar returns with immigrant fable ‘Elemental’

Pixar is seeking to rediscover its box office fortunes with timely immigrant fable "Elemental," the animation studio's first totally original...

Read more

On Lampedusa, Red Cross takes over grim migrant hub

byAFP
June 10, 2023, 12:00 pm
0
8
Rapper Drakeo the Ruler fatally stabbed at LA festival

The reception centre on the Italian island of Lampedusa is for many migrants their first taste of Europe after crossing...

Read more

Nuggets a win shy of 1st NBA crown

byManila Standard Sports
June 10, 2023, 11:17 am
0
8
Nuggets a win shy of 1st NBA crown

Aaron Gordon of the Denver Nuggets dunks against the Miami Heat in Game Three of the 2023 NBA Finals at...

Read more

Advertisement

ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube

ABOUT US

Manila Standard

Manila Standard website (manilastandard.net), launched in August 2002, extends the newspaper’s reach beyond its traditional readers and makes its brand of Philippine news and opinion available to a much wider and geographically diverse readership here and overseas.

Digital Edition

In tone and content, the online edition mirrors the editorial thrust of the newspaper. While hewing to the traditional precepts of fairness and objectivity, MS believes the news of the day need not be staid, overly long or dry. Stories are succinct, readable and written in a lively style that has become a hallmark of the newspaper.

Download – Today’s Paper

Search

No Result
View All Result

6th Floor Universal Re Bldg., 106 Paseo De Roxas cor. Perea Street, Legaspi Village, 1226 Makati City Philippines

Trunklines: 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Pop.Life
    • Newsmakers
    • Hangouts
    • A-Pop
    • Post Its
    • Performances
    • Malls & Bazaars
    • Hobbies & Collections
  • Technology
    • Gadgets
    • Computers
    • Business
    • Tech Plus
  • MS ON THE ROAD
    • Sedan
    • SUV
    • Truck
    • Bike
    • Accessories
    • Motoring Plus
    • Commuter’s Corner
  • Home & Design
    • Residential
    • Commercial
    • Construction
    • Interior
  • Spotlight
  • Gallery
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Events
    • Seminars
    • Exhibits
    • Community
  • Biyahero
    • Travel Features
    • Travel Reels
    • Travel Logs
  • Pets
  • Advertise with Us

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Install Manila Standard Web App

Install App