In the nation's capital, emergency room wait times at hospitals are getting longer and longer
Parents at CHEO claim to be sleeping in the emergency room overnight while holding their infants while they wait in agony for medical attention.
It took Vanessa Brydges 12 hours to get her son an appointment with a doctor.
Than you have to wait for 10 to 12 hours while also trying to figure out what's wrong with your child, Brydges says, "it's just really challenging." Every parent there is under the same amount of stress as I am.
Brydges reports her son had a temperature and was projectile vomiting.
The problem affects not just CHEO; hospitals all around the province are as well. Staff members are coping with burnout and a shortage of healthcare workers.
By 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, 48 kids had registered at CHEO's emergency room. At 6:30 p.m., CHEO reported that there were 37 patients in the emergency room waiting to see a doctor, with the greatest wait time being over seven hours.
According to Tammy Digitonin, senior vice-president and chief nurse executive of CHEO's clinical services, "We constantly breaking our own records, which isn't anything that we want to achieve."
There is no end in sight, according to some in the medical field.
According to Karen McCoy, president of CHEO'S union contract negotiations, "Healthcare has been acting like an elastic band. You may keep stretching it, but ultimately the elastic band will just break." "We currently travel that route."
They were eager to see their family doctor, according to Brydges. Her son exhibited indications of the flu and a fever. They spent the night in the ER waiting for treatment, according to her, while someone subsequently diagnosed him with influenza.
It's challenging because you place your faith in the system, believing that it will support, assist, and assist parents and guardians, but your children see you helpless and scream in anguish or confusion, according to Brydges.
Many reasons contribute to the lengthy wait times.
There are more children, but they offered less services in the neighbourhood, according to Degiovanni. There aren't enough primary care doctors, and the number of clinics in the neighbourhood is declining.
The staff in the children's hospital, according to Brydges, were excellent and were doing their best despite the challenging circumstances.
CHEO provided a list of measures it was taking to address patient and staffing issues on Friday, including filling more than a dozen emergency department vacancies. The hospital is striving to return certain personnel with critical care training to patient-facing roles.
