Emergency Departments: a Refuge or a Death Sentence
by Kurt Young
In 2018 my mother became ill to the point of hospitalization. She had begun developing stones in her gall bladder which led to a host of debilitating symptoms. Her initial surgical admission at a hospital in Mississauga went without incident. A semi-private room was provided to her pre and post-surgery.
After several years of discomfort, the extreme pain returned. My mother was admitted to the emergency ward. Due to her condition not being considered severe enough, she was made to wait 18 hours before admission. When a gurney had become available, my mother was then placed in a staff only hallway for several more hours until a room could be made available. This was a large room with bays separated by thin cloth suspended on a rail and track system. Even at this point in time my mother had yet to see a doctor.
After a room was made available, my mother was moved to the hallway on the third floor with a collapsible, portable steel framed cloth barrier as the means of protecting her privacy. This was my mother’s pre-operation experience. Post operation, after the doctors had successfully removed the last remnants of stones from her gall bladder, my mother was housed in an auditorium with a dozen or so other patients with the same flimsy curtains separating their beds and providing “privacy”.
On September 13, 2025 after being severely injured in a motorcycle riding class, I was admitted to the Oakville Trafalgar hospital. Oakville is considered among the top ten wealthiest cities in Canada. The facilities were a stark contrast to the hospital where my mother was admitted. In the emergency room each bay intended to house patients was separated by strong sturdy walls with sliding glass doors providing privacy. Likely owing to the severity of my injuries, I remained in the hallway for less than 20 minutes as a room was being made available for me. After my operation I was provided with a large private room - the size of which in most hospitals would have been dedicated to two patients. This was a model of how medical services should be delivered. It seems that the wealthy in this area enjoyed a level of care unavailable to many others.
Luckily my mother’s health condition was non-life threatening, unlike 16-year-old Finlay van der Werken who on February 9, 2024, died in an emergency ward after waiting for more than eight hours. This tragedy was a direct result of overcrowded and understaffed Canadian hospitals. To spare others the grief she now endures, his mother began a petition campaign for “Finlay’s Law” - legislation to set maximum legal pediatric ER waittime limits (e.g., physician assessment within two hours and admission within eight hours), mandate safe pediatric nursetopatient and physiciantopatient ratios, create independent oversight and public reviews of pediatric ER deaths, and fund better pediatric emergency readiness. These are reforms that are urgently needed.
An ever growing number of hospitals across Ontario are practicing “hallway medicine”. Staffing shortages caused by the Ford government health care cuts have resulted in Ontario having the lowest nursing hours per patient in Canada. Ontario also has the fewest hospital beds per person among peer countries - ranking third from the bottom of OECD countries.
According to a Globe and Mail investigation, since 2019, some 34% of Canadian emergency rooms were closed on a short term or a planned long term basis. Accessible emergency room services are critical for severely ill or injured patients and are a safety net for the 6 million Canadians without a primary care-giver as well as the un-housed and those who suffer from substance abuse disorders.
The emergency room crisis is the result of the knock-on effect of a lack of acute care hospital beds which in turn is related to lack of staff and the shortage of long term care homes.
Our healthcare system is chronically underfunded and left to deteriorate while private healthcare is gaining momentum across the country. It is urgent now to join with unions, social movements and communities involved in the Canadian Health Coalition to demand universal public health care. Capitalism Can’t be Fixed. Only socialism can provide a sustainable solution to this crisis.