Toronto hospitals must hire thousands to keep ERs open, warns union

A union representing healthcare workers warns Toronto area hospitals must add tens of thousands of staff to their workforce each year, or already long emergency room wait times will worsen.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is calling for 15,000 new hires this year alone just to keep emergency rooms and other units from closing. Across Ontario, CUPE said 46,000 more hospital staff must be hired to deal with a turnover rate that is almost double pre-pandemic levels.

“The premier reassures us that the utmost is being done to treat patients in a timely manner, but this simply isn’t true,” said Dave Verch of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions in a news conference outside Scarborough General Hospital on Tuesday.

“Our polling suggests that the hospital workforce is exhausted and demoralized, and without some significant changes, the exodus of staff will continue to accelerate.”

The wait time to be seen in emergency for patients admitted to hospital is now 20.7 hours.

The latest data shows less than a quarter of patients who require a hospital stay are being moved through the ER promptly. Some of the longest waits are in Toronto, with patients at St. Joseph’s Hospital waiting 37.9 hours in emergency before getting a bed in a ward.

This summer, dozens of hospitals in the province were forced to close their emergency rooms, beds or ICUs because of critically low staffing levels.

The emergency room delays have had a ripple effect across the system.

CUPE said people who call 9-1-1 are waiting longer for an ambulance to arrive because paramedics are spending more time offloading patients than responding to emergencies. Paramedics cannot leave their patients until they are transferred to the care of hospital staff, and in the worst cases, that’s led to stretches of time when no ambulances are available.

Toronto Paramedic Services said they needed 500 new hires yesterday.

“If there’s a car accident in this city right now, a multi-car accident, maybe five patients, you could strip this entire city of ambulances. That’s how bad things are,” cautioned Mike Merriman, CUPE Local 416 Paramedic Unit Chair.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health touted its plan to shore up the healthcare system.

The statement reads in part, “Once fully implemented, the next phase of the Plan to Stay Open will add up to 6,000 more health care workers to Ontario’s health workforce, will free up over 2,500 hospital beds so that care is there for those who need it, and will expand models of care that provide better, more appropriate care to avoid unnecessary visits to emergency departments.”