A new survey of Ontario’s emergency room physicians suggests the majority are struggling with severe overcrowding, hurting the ability of some to see patients as quickly as they should.
A study released by the Ontario Medical Association on Monday morning polled ER doctors across the province to build a snapshot of the struggling health-care system.
“The survey reveals a health-care system in profound crisis, with overwhelming consensus among emergency department physicians about the severity of challenges facing Ontario’s EDs,” the OMA wrote.
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Roughly 15 per cent of the emergency room physicians in the province responded to the survey — with the vast majority of those polled reporting issues.
Seventy-four per cent of those who answered said overcrowding was either severe or critical, while 76 per cent said overcrowding affected their ability to provide timely care “on most shifts or nearly every shift.”
The data follows an Ipsos poll, also commissioned by the OMA, that found a majority of Ontarians thought the government had done a poor job of dealing with overcrowding in emergency rooms.
A spokesperson for Minister of Health Sylvia Jones said the government was “making record investments” in the province’s health-care system.
“This year alone, we are investing over $101 billion in our healthcare system, including a 4 per cent increase to the hospital sector for the third year in a row, bringing our total investment increase to hospitals to over 50 per cent since 2018,” they wrote.
“This is in addition to the 50 new MRI and CT machines we have added in hospitals, the 100,000 annual diagnostic scans we have added in community surgical and diagnostic centres, and the 3,500 new hospital beds, 20,000 new doctors, and 100,000 new nurses that have been added since 2018.”
Not sure why a study is required. All you need do ask the people waiting to see a doctor in the emergency.
Wow. This is shocking. I’ve never heard this before. Slow news day for Goebbels news or the warm up for more immigration? Hmmmm
Time to allow foreign doctors to open clinic here.there are thousands of foreign doctors ready and willing to settle here.
This is why the American system is far superior to Canada’s. We pay exorbitant taxes do absolutely nothing.
waiting time to see specialist and then waiting time for MRI. 3 months for one ankle then 4 months wait for the other ankle. That’s 7 months of acute pain. Why not go to emerg and get all theses done at once emergency. More and more of this is happening.