Doctor calling attention to worsening crisis in Toronto emergency rooms

As social media blows up with complaints regarding the wait times at Pearson Airport, doctors are sounding the alarm about the worsening crisis in emergency rooms.

Dr. Kashif Pirzada, a Toronto emergency room physician, recently took to Twitter to share his concerns about the health care system he says is on the brink of collapsing.

At the moment in Ontario, ER wait times and crowding is at crisis levels. Many of us have never seen it this bad in our entire careers.
The expiry of mask mandates in medical settings in June 11 is set to make this problem much worse. Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/9qPRWANZRN

— Kashif Pirzada, MD (@KashPrime) June 6, 2022

“The public doesn’t realize it but the system you have come to rely on is being held together by duct tape and glue.” Dr. Pirzada told CityNews. “We have never seen it this bad in our entire careers.”

Dr. Pirzada said wait times can now be between six and eight hours if you go to the emergency rooms.

“You are facing longer wait times to register and just be triaged. There is a lot of us that want to help but there is just not the staff – everything from getting a cut fixed, a bone reset or god forbid, a heart attack, everything is taking longer than it should.”

“Pre-pandemic, things were never amazing, but this is much worse than usual.”

SicKids’ hospital also recently reported children are waiting up to four times longer than usual.

Others have taken to Twitter to share their experiences at local ERs.

Sabina Vohra-Miller with the South Asian Health Network wrote about her latest visit, saying she heard nurses talking about hundreds of patients waiting, multiple emergencies, people crying and many leaving without being seen.

Recently had to visit a local Emergency Dept. We went at a time when it is typically the least busiest (weekday morning). It was anything but.
Overheard two nurses saying they had over a hundred patients waiting, multiple emergencies, patients crying & yelling, many who left…

— Sabina Vohra-Miller (@SabiVM) June 7, 2022

“This needs to be addressed urgently. This is not the same system you went through a couple years ago, maybe even a year ago. It’s under a lot more stress and we need attention to fix these problems.”

Even with COVID-19 cases on a steady decline as predicted with the warmer weather, Dr. Prizada said people are coming in sick with a variety of other issues, such as post-COVID lung damage, blood clots, strokes and heart attacks.

“It’s harder to see [patients] quickly. It’s harder to assess them. Resources in the community to send them to see specialists or get tests are not there. There’s so many less staff than we had before. A lot of people have quit or have been burnt out. And so we’re working with a lot less,” said Dr. Prizada. “All of this adds together to be create a crisis atmosphere in our emergency rooms.”

He added the infrastructure of the healthcare system is collapsing with clinics and primary care still not fully functional. Dr. Pirzada said the province should be giving these clinics and primary care doctors the tools to function safely.

“A lot of family physicians, and rightfully so, are afraid to see patients in person because of the COVID risk. Make it safer, help defend family colleagues, upgrade their clinics with ventilation,” he said.

Improving public spaces with ventilation would also go far in helping the health care system, he explained.

“Get every public space, well ventilated, you’ll slow down the spread of whatever diseases come in the future. It’ll make a big difference to flu. It’ll make a big difference in COVID as well, so there’s a lot of things we can do about it. You just can’t pretend this stuff is gone. It’s going to come back,” he said.

According to the Ministry of Health, 40 per cent of doctors appointments in Ontario are still virtual visits, but that’s a significant drop from the height of the pandemic when 97 per cent of appointments were done by video or over the phone.

Under the new Physician Services Agreement with the province, doctors can bill OHIP the same amount they would bill for an in-person visit when they provide care by a video platform.

Some say virtual health care is contributing to the ER wait times.

SickKids recently launched a virtual triage tool to try and limit emergency room visits for non-urgent issues.

With files from Meredith Bond