With pediatric hospitals under pressure, Ontario’s medical association is offering guidance

With extraordinarily long wait times at emergency rooms across Ontario, parents are concerned they won’t be able to access proper care for their children.

In the province, all pediatric hospitals are currently experiencing 100 per cent occupancy. Officials said that many children are being admitted into intensive care with influenza A and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. As a result, some hospital staff across Canada who typically work in surgery and other units will be temporarily transferred to the intensive care unit.

Doctors say respiratory illnesses have persistently created unprecedented wait times in hospitals, which is why, on Friday, the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) said families should exhaust all options before heading to the ER.

Tara Kiran is a family physician at Toronto’s St. Michael Hospital and senior author of a preliminary study comparing patients who visited their family doctors virtually with those who visited a virtual-only clinic.

Kiran says that despite the anguish caused by children getting these viruses, they can be treated at home. This includes Influenza A, the predominant virus affecting kids, and in many cases, this can be resolved by visiting a family doctor. The issue therein lies in recent statistics that show close to two million people in Ontario do not have their own physicians.

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The OMA says it’s concerned with a doctor shortage. In Toronto, one-in-five doctors admit they’re ready to close their practice in the next five years. OMA President, Dr. Rose Zacharias, says addressing the deficiency will immediately help alleviate the burden on hospitals, including licencing foreign-trained physicians in Canada who are ready to work as family doctors.

“The immediate solution, if implemented, could see hundreds of doctors into our system as early as the spring,” Dr. Zacharias said.

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has said Ottawa recently gave provinces an additional $2 billion as calls grow for both levels of government to do more to help hospitals facing unprecedented challenges.

The last week of November saw the highest number of pediatric hospitalizations for a single week in the past decade. A typical flu season sees about 1,000 kids admitted to hospital. Due to pandemic public health measures, last season saw only 400, and there were none the season before that.

Up to the end of November, over 700 children had been hospitalized with the H3N2 strain of the flu, which typically takes a toll on older adults.

The OMA says parents and guardians should not hesitate to bring their child to a hospital in an emergency. This includes if a fever is experienced in a child under three months, difficulty breathing and signs of dehydration, among other symptoms.

With files from The Canadian Press