Health workers to premiers: find solutions to ‘crisis,’ don’t just ask Ottawa for funds
Global News
Health-care workers and advocates hope premiers will look beyond simply asking Ottawa for more health care funding and instead create an action plan to fix the health care crisis.
Amid what many are calling a health-care crisis, those on the front lines want Canadian premiers, who will gather for their first in-person meeting since 2019, to come up with a concrete action plan.
When Kaitlin Laverdure took her two-year-old daughter Everleigh to the emergency room in Pembroke, Ont., in May, she never dreamed she would have to wait for 10 hours, only to have doctors and staff forget about them.
Unable to get an appointment with her family doctor, Laverdure was left with no option but to take her toddler to the ER after weeks of receiving no treatment or answers about her daughter’s persistent raspy cough. She worried it could be pneumonia.
At the hospital, after the initial wait to get through triage, Laverdure and her daughter were ushered into a room and told to wait again.
A doctor did come in at one point, but left shortly after, promising to return. He never did.
Finally, a custodian came by and noticed the mother and child.
“Have you been seen yet?” the custodian asked.
“No. The doctor came and he left and I haven’t seen anybody since then. It’s been hours,” Laverdure replied. It was now well past her toddler’s bedtime.
