Latest news with #ERclosures
Globe and Mail
12-07-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
Letters to the editor, July 12: ‘I was a rural family doctor for 30 years … when things ran smoothly, there were enough beds and emergency rooms did not close'
Re 'Canadian ERs closed their doors for at least 1.14 million hours since 2019, records show' (July 5): I was a rural family doctor for 30 years. The question that no one seems to ask about the deterioration in services is how they were provided in the past with shorter waiting times and fewer staff, at a relatively lesser cost. Dinosaurs like myself remember those days when things ran smoothly, there were enough beds and emergency rooms did not close. We might like to look at why that is, beginning with the vast number of administrators we now employ. Having retired, I feel I can say that, but my colleagues who still work probably dare not. Christopher Moss Cumberland County, N.S. British Columbia's failure to provide timely emergency room closure information, as requested by The Globe and Mail, demonstrates to me just how appallingly bad the provincial Health Ministry is, along with the ER services it provides. How do I know? I have experienced it firsthand. B.C. health authorities, which are organized regionally, seem bloated with management yet are consistently short-staffed in ERs. This is not new; it has been this way for years. Despite all the blather from ministers of health, in this government and the one before it, little has changed. Roger Emsley Delta, B.C. Re 'Cut housing prices? It will be all we can do just to slow their increase' (Opinion, July 5): Columnist Andrew Coyne dismisses the idea that governments could intervene to increase housing supply, citing one study that claims it would cost $200- to $300-billion to finance construction of units for the 10 per cent of Canadians in core housing need. I assume that this study was done by the private sector to guard its own turf. But the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation could act as its own developer to build prefabricated housing on land the government already owns, thereby avoiding the costs of land purchases and developer profit. These units could be rented at affordable rates to those in need without affecting prices in the private market, since those in core housing need were not in that market anyway. Critics would say that governments cannot possibly run developments, but that should be considered a canard. Governments run all sorts of enterprises well, we just take them for granted. James Duthie Nanaimo, B.C. Re 'How Trump could make Canada better' (July 5): In all the talk about Canada's supposedly unfair supply management system, there is one word I haven't heard mentioned: quality. It may be true that certain people have it out for Canadian dairy because American product isn't allowed to swamp our grocery shelves, but there is far more to this than economics. When we sit back with friends to enjoy a summer apéro, it is always accompanied by a Quebec Sauvagine, Oka or Cendrillon cheese. Would these unique gems survive without a system that provides farmers the opportunity to produce high-quality product and not tasteless gloop churned out in 40-gallon drums? The American dairy industry has been in shambles for years. The free market has made it cheaper to buy a gallon of milk than a bottle of Perrier. Canadian dairy is cultural heritage; please protect it from the cheesy bacterial culture of the 'grand fromage' south of the border. Kevin Tibbles Les Éboulements, Que. Re 'When did society lose its love for children in public spaces?' (Opinion, July 5): There was a time when kids ruled the streets. No longer. I grew up on a dead-end street with 11 houses and 33 kids. Kids were everywhere. Our grass was kid-ridden for years. My father always said that when we're finished growing the kids, we'll grow the grass. I see more dogs than kids on neighbourhood streets these days. Give play back to the kids. Of course to figure out what play actually is, they may have to google it. Douglas Cornish Ottawa Some years ago in France, I noted that most restaurants catered to families, and that children were almost universally well behaved. It seems that French parents teach their children how to behave in public spaces. We older folk love children and delight in their company and vitality in public spaces. If, from time to time, we have to point out the niceties of social interaction to young people, it is because their millennial parents have not done so. Out of love, we are generously filling in this gap. So the next time an adult asks, 'Didn't your parents teach you how to walk on a sidewalk?' – because those parents probably didn't – accept that as a helpful welcome to join the wonderful world we live in on a mutually appreciative basis. Nobody wants to live in a childless society. Richard Belliveau Ottawa After our daughter was born, we moved into a medium-rise building. I was struck by two things: how many other babies there were, while the rest of the residents were much older. I began hosting 'baby' holiday parties in our apartment then, in warmer months, outside in the courtyard. Us parents grew close. But that's not what surprised me. I was struck by how many residents stopped to say how wonderful it was to see so many babies together. But when the baby crawling turned into toddler roaming, then preschooler running, I became worried. But instead, our concierge was delighted. He said no one had used the space like this before, and we were the talk of the building. One day he called me over: There was a complaint. I braced. Were we too loud? Did someone hate the kids? Nope. A new mom was wondering why she wasn't invited. Tracy Giesz-Ramsay Vancouver Re 'Dictionary of Canadianisms offers more homegrown slang, from give'r to gong show' (July 5): A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, First Edition was originally published in 1967 by a crack team of lexicographers led by editor-in-chief Walter Avis, a professor and dean at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston. This landmark Canadian dictionary demonstrated 'that a substantial vocabulary relating to both today and yesterday has been developed by Canadians.' The Canadian dictionary series that evolved from this critical work was a bold idea for a country that had only recently begun to consider itself a nation in its own right. Today we have new threats to our sovereignty. We should bolster our efforts to build a more independent sovereign nation. Mapping our cultural development through Canadian English is part of this important effort. Great support and interest should be focused on the efforts of Stefan Dollinger and our lexicographers to bring us Canadian dictionaries for these challenging times. Elbows up, indeed. Pete Avis Kingston Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@
Globe and Mail
04-07-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
Explore the emergency room closures in your area with our interactive map
This project aims to document every instance in which a hospital emergency department (ER) in Canada closed its doors – temporarily or permanently – since 2019. For each closure, The Globe and Mail captured the ER's name, start and end times, and the reason for the disruption. Explore the interactive map below to browse ER closures across Canada, as compiled by The Globe and Mail. The analysis focuses exclusively on emergency departments. It does not include closures or service interruptions at walk-in clinics, urgent care centres or community health centres. To compile a complete list, The Globe asked each province and territory for a list of all ERs under their jurisdiction. If an ER was permanently closed or converted to a clinic, its closure hours were no longer counted beyond that point. Closures were classified into three categories: These are unplanned, one-off disruptions. An ER is considered temporarily closed if it shuts down with little advance notice and the closure does not follow a recurring schedule. Recurring reductions in service hours (e.g., overnight or weekend closures) that persisted for at least two consecutive months. Short-term reductions – such as during holidays – were still considered temporary. Importantly, scheduled closures that began before 2019, the starting point of this project, are not included in this analysis. This is to avoid attributing long-standing schedules as new disruptions. In some jurisdictions, the data did not distinguish between scheduled and temporary closures. In such cases, all disruptions were grouped under a general 'ER closures' category. These occur when an ER remains physically open but is unable to provide full emergency services. Common examples include: Some records lacked specific start or end times. In those cases, The Globe imputed missing values using the average duration of similar disruptions at the same ER. This approach was used in: Health authorities in the territories reported no closures of service disruptions.
CTV News
28-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
Unprecedented': Nearly 200 ER closures in two B.C. health regions this year
There's growing worry that lives are being put at risk by the lack of emergency health care in some B.C. communities. There's growing worry that lives are being put at risk by the lack of emergency health care in some B.C. communities. There are growing concerns over lives being put at risk over the lack of emergency health care in some B.C. communities, say local health authorities. Interior and Northern Health combined have seen close to 200 temporary emergency room closures just this year. Among them, the ER at Lakes District Hospital and Health Centre in Burns Lake, which has faced 30 closures since January. 'This is unprecedented here as far as closures go,' said Village of Burns Lake Mayor Henry Wiebe. 'People are worried. The seniors especially are worried,' he explained. The next closest emergency room is an hour-and-a-half drive away in Vanderhoof. 'When we have the diversions, that puts an extra load on the Vanderhoof and Smithers ER's, which then it's just a domino effect from there,' said Wiebe, who said he recently met with B.C.'s health minister. Northern Health alone has seen 125 temporary emergency room closures this year, 38 of them at Mackenzie and District Hospital. 'Emergency department service interruptions are always a last resort, when all options to keep the ER open have failed,' Northern Health said in an email to CTV News. In Interior Heath, there's been a total of 65 closures this year, including 31 in Lillooet. And there's more expected. 'The shortage of health professionals locally, and nationally, does continue to impact a number of our emergency departments, and although we are successful at filling many vacant shifts, we do anticipate service interruptions will continue to occur,' Interior Health said in an email to CTV News. 'When we have a closed sign on the door and you have a huge distance between communities, the risk to patients is significant. So how do we keep that door open?', asked Paul Adams of the BC Rural Health Network. Adams said instead of shutting down ER's, at least for the short-term, the province should ensure there are paramedics or other healthcare workers at hospital emergency rooms. 'If it requires a reduction in the care to be provided within that place, it's better to be reduced care than no care,' Adams said. B.C.'s health minister said she's looking at both long and short-term solutions. 'We are at work right now looking at how to better address emergency room shortages in particular,' said Health Minister Josie Osborne. 'Again, I come back to the need to train and recruit more physicians, nurses, and other healthcare workers. But also looking at scopes of practise and the way people come together in emergency rooms,' she said. 'We've added two physician assistants at Saanich Peninsula Hospital over on Vancouver Island as one way of extending the services that emergency rooms can provide. We're going to continue to do everything that we can to expand that,' the minister explained. Meanwhile, Adams said the minister should review the provincial privileging system for doctors, which allows them to work in specific hospitals. He said it is duplicative and has become an obstacle for doctors who might otherwise take on additional ER shifts in rural hospitals. Emergency room closures are less frequent in the Lower Mainland, but they do happen. There have been three temporary service interruptions at Mission Memorial this year and two at Delta Hospital. 'When a physician gap is identified, we work hard until the very last moment to fill it before we implement our temporary service interruption protocol,' said an email from Fraser Health. 'Our efforts to fill shifts, and prevent emergency department service interruptions, are almost always successful,' the email read. The Ministry of Health told CTV News in an email that, 'In the first quarter of 2025, BC has seen a 26% decrease in ER closures (total hours) compared to the same period in 2024.' But for those living in communities facing ongoing closures, it certainly doesn't feel that way.
