Wait times in children’s ERs are spiking. Here’s a look at how long you might wait
Global News
With some children’s hospitals in Canada experiencing significant surges in patients, emergency wait times have started to soar.
With some children’s hospitals in Canada experiencing significant surges in patients, emergency wait times have started to soar.
Wait times in the emergency department at CHEO in Ottawa were over 10 hours Thursday morning, and on Wednesday, the emergency department at London’s Children’s Hospital sent out a public notice on social media advising parents to prepare for wait times of five hours or more for non-urgent concerns.
A number of hospitals in Ontario say they are seeing significant influxes of children with respiratory illnesses, including RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), COVID-19 and influenza.
This has placed considerable pressures on emergency departments across the province.
Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatric infectious disease specialist, says she is “very concerned” about how patient influxes are affecting the health system in the province, as there are no beds left in the University Health Network hospital in which she works.
“We’ve got this pandemic of three viruses right now, where it’s a COVID, RSV and the beginning of influenza, and so a lot of children are having these respiratory infections… and some of them are really sick and need to be hospitalized. But there’s no beds,” she said.
“And this is just the beginning of the season. It only gets worse.”
Volumes of patients in the emergency department at SickKids hospital in Toronto are also “unseasonably high” and have been increasing, the hospital said in a statement to Global News. Wait time data available online showed an average wait time of close to five hours for non-urgent cases Thursday, and the hospital is encouraging parents to look at options for visiting a family doctor or accessing virtual care before heading to the ER.
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