Voice of Commonwealth

Canada’s health-care system is crumbling

Share

CANADA Liz LeClair of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, endured agonizing stomach agony and vomiting for 36 hours without receiving any assistance from an emergency.

Her experience is just one illustration of how Canada’s health care system, which is severely overworked and struggling due to a lack of workers, needs urgent improvement, according to experts. LeClair called the province’s virtual health line earlier this month after experiencing rising pain.

“My signs and symptoms were symptomatic of possibly a bowel obstruction of some kind,” she told CTV News.

She called 911 and waited more than two hours for an ambulance. None arrived. Eventually, she was told the wait to see an ER doctor was currently up to 16 hours. So, she did the only thing she could — praying her symptoms would simply subside, as family members cared for her at home. Her experience is far from unique. Across the country, Canadians have been struggling with inflated wait times at hospitals, closed emergency departments, shrinking access to ambulances and long-term care, among other impacts, as the health-care system limps along. Experts say that drastic action needs to be taken to aid health-care workers.

“We don’t have enough doctors or nurses to be able to take care of all the Nova Scotians and Canadians that need access to care,” Dr. Leisha Hawker, president of Doctors Nova Scotia, told CTV News.

The demand is too great, say doctors and nurses from coast to coast. According to Tim Guest, president of the Canadian Nurses Association, morale is at an all-time low.

“I would say that nurses are exhausted, they’re burnt out, they’re demoralized,” he told CTV News.

In an effort to reduce backlogs, the provincial government of Ontario recently announced that it would move some surgeries into private clinics. This is a concerning decision that experts fear could result in increased privatization as a means of avoiding fixing the public health care system.

Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) president Cathryn Hoy said in a press release that shifts into privatization “will only line the pockets of investors, nothing more.”

She added: “The evidence is clear: health-care privatization provides worse health outcomes to our patients and has much higher overhead costs which will be paid by taxpayers.”

“We encourage the federal government to swiftly meet with the provinces and territories to resolve funding issues and develop real solutions to address systemic challenges that require immediate action,” the July statement reads.

Fortunately for LeClair, after more than a day of incapacitating pain, her symptoms did abate. She is troubled by the thought that if things had suddenly gone worse, assistance would not have been available.

“This was the first time that I ever thought that I might die at home,” she said.

Read more

More News