Preventable cold-related deaths take toll on Ontario’s homeless population, hospital staff
Global News
Hypothermia contributed to the deaths of 62 people in 2023, with nine of them considered homeless, and 57 deaths in 2024 with 11 people listed as homeless.
Seven times over the past two winters, doctors, nurses and staff in the emergency department of a downtown Toronto hospital took a moment of silence after a patient, often a Jane or John Doe, died from the cold.
Clinically, it is known as severe accidental hypothermia, and it usually affects the city’s homeless population. The staff at St. Michael’s Hospital are on the front lines of caring for many who live on the street.
It is sad and difficult work, they say.
“We take a pause at the end of the case and just acknowledge that there’s a human here, a person, someone who has community, someone who is loved,” said Dr. Evelyn Dell, an emergency department physician and trauma doctor.
“It’s not much, but I think that it goes a long way.”
Dell has lamentably developed an expertise in resuscitating patients with severe hypothermia. But the hospital is turning that into an advantage by studying hypothermia more closely.
It says it has saved four people who were on the brink of death from hypothermia over the past two winters.
Dell has taken the lead on a project at the hospital to better understand how to treat those with the most serious cases of hypothermia. She is part of a team that includes other ER doctors and nurses.
Ottawa Fire Services said they received multiple calls around 9:30 p.m. Saturday about a fire with people trapped in a high-rise building in the 300 block of Somerset Street West.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre proposed a tariff-free auto pact with the U.S. to revive Canada’s auto sector, at a press conference in Windsor, Ont. on Sunday.
The vice-president of the St. John's Junior Hockey League, says the violent game was an isolated incident and officials have since handed out suspensions to 18 players and coaches.
Alberta RCMP say just before 3 p.m. Saturday, a pickup truck pulled up beside a Honda Civic on Highway 2 and fired a weapon, resulting in the death of a driver.
Two men face charges ranging from mischief to assault and harassment following Saturday's Al Quds Day march in Toronto. Police say the suspects were counter-protesters.
Snow is continuing to fall in parts of Ontario, B.C. and Quebec, with heavy rain and freezing rain expected in some communities in the Maritimes and Ontario.
As demand for syrup has surged in recent years, Quebec's maple industry is evolving too, adding millions of new taps and turning to automation and better technology.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is concluding his time in Norway meeting with that country’s prime minister, along with the leaders of Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Finland.
Two people have been charged with first-degree murder after the remains of Masood Masjoody, reported missing in February, were discovered in Mission, B.C., police say.
A man and a teenage boy have died after a shooting in Winnipeg’s North End, and police are asking the public for information as the homicide investigation continues.
When you walk into the Club Pays coffee shop in Montreal, the first thing you see are the posters with Quebec sovereignty slogans plastered on every wall.
Police have identified the woman found dead inside a north Toronto home as 60-year-old Xian Wei Shao. She is believed to be Toronto's fourth homicide victim of 2026.
Ontario's public safety regulator has laid charges against the operator of a Scarborough trampoline park following a zipline accident in January that sent a boy to hospital.