For 36 hours, Liz LeClair suffered excruciating abdominal pain and vomiting at her home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, without an ambulance coming to help.
His ordeal is just one example of how Canada’s health care system, hugely overstretched and struggling with labor shortages, needs desperate attention, experts say.
When LeClair was hit with increasing pain earlier this month, she called the province’s virtual health line.
“My signs and symptoms were symptomatic of some kind of bowel obstruction,” she told CTV News.
But she was told it would take nine hours before she could speak to a nurse.
She called 911 and waited over two hours for an ambulance. None have arrived.
Eventually, she was told that the wait to see an ER doctor was currently 4 p.m.
So she did the only thing she could – praying that her symptoms would simply go away, as her family members were caring for her at home.
His experience is far from unique.
Across the country, Canadians are grappling with inflated hospital wait times, closed emergency departments, reduced access to ambulances and long-term care, among other impacts, as the health care system box.
Experts say drastic measures must be taken to help healthcare workers.
“We don’t have enough doctors or nurses to be able to care for all Nova Scotians and Canadians who need access to care,” Dr. Leisha Hawker, president of Doctors Nova Scotia, told CTV News. .
Doctors and nurses coast to coast say they cannot keep up with demand. Morale is at rock bottom, according to Tim Guest, president of the Canadian Nurses Association.
“I would say the nurses are exhausted, exhausted, demoralized,” he told CTV News.
In British Columbia, health experts cite burnout, low wages and mental health issues as reasons there are fewer ambulances on the road.
In some areas, there are none.
Troy Clifford, president of Ambulance Paramedics of BC, said a marked shortage of ambulances is now happening “every day of the week”.
“It’s not just isolated on weekends and nights, and it’s really straining the system and affecting our patients,” he told CTV News.
In Ontario, the provincial government recently announced it would expand some surgeries to private clinics in a bid to reduce backlogs, a troubling move that experts say could lead to increased privatization to avoid fixing the healthcare system. public health.
Cathryn Hoy, President of the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) said in a press release going privatized “will only line the pockets of investors, nothing more”.
She added: “The evidence is clear: privatizing health care produces worse health outcomes for our patients and results in much higher overhead costs that will be paid for by taxpayers.
Earlier this month, the ONA requested the province’s Bill 124 to be repealed, stating that its removal of nurses’ salaries and benefits exacerbates staffing shortages by preventing nurses from supporting themselves.
In northern Manitoba, at Lynn Lake Hospital, at least eight patients were transferred over an eight-hour drive to Flin Flon due to a staff shortage that forced the closure of all care beds long term.
Families only received 24 hours notice.
A sudden transfer like this means many families won’t be able to visit loved ones, according to Lynn Lake Councilor Victoria Phillips.
“There are a lot of families living in the area who are elderly, who may not be driving, who can’t afford their own personal vehicle, so it’s really causing a lot of heartbreak,” said- she declared.
One of these eight patients died two weeks later.
“She definitely would have been alone,” Phillips said. “I don’t think his family can make it in time.”
In a statement this evening, the president of the Canadian Medical Association pointed out that decades of disjointed and siloed decisions explain the current state of the health care system.
He says he hopes to see concrete solutions during meetings this week between the premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island to resolve this crisis.
A CMA’s previous statement in July said increased federal funding was needed to address the complex and intertwined issues.
“We encourage the federal government to meet quickly with provinces and territories to address funding issues and develop real solutions to address systemic challenges that require immediate action,” the July statement said.
Luckily for LeClair, her symptoms subsided after more than a day of debilitating pain. But she is haunted by the idea that if things had suddenly gotten worse, there might not have been any help available.
“It was the first time I thought I could die at home,” she said.
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