Jimu News reporter Hu Xiuwen
Intern Peng Xinyi
According to Reuters’ report on July 3, due to the resurgence of the new crown epidemic, the number of patients has surged, and medical personnel have been in short supply. Health authorities across Canada have cut hours in hospital emergency rooms and urgent care clinics this week, a move that could continue throughout the summer.
Last Thursday, hospitals in the Perth and Smiths Falls region of eastern Ontario announced that the emergency department of a local hospital in Perth would be closed for several days a week due to the impact of the new crown epidemic on its staffing. Alan Drummond, an emergency physician in the town, said he saw patients waiting 20 hours to be admitted, a condition that could worsen the patient’s condition. He blamed years of underfunding for hospital beds and community care for the situation.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with doctors at Children’s Hospital (Photo: Reuters)
< p>While hospitals in small Canadian towns sometimes shorten their hours, regional health centres rarely do. Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, would not say how many hospitals in the province were affected by the temporary closure, but said it had taken steps to address the problem, including retaining nurses and other health care workers. “Sometimes a hospital has to make the difficult decision to temporarily close emergency rooms so that other parts of the hospital can continue to perform surgeries,” said a spokesman for the province’s Ministry of Health.
Quebec, Canada’s second largest province, and new Hospitals in Brunswick and Manitoba have also closed some departments or temporarily reduced hours, ranging from weeks to months. Clinicians say the change in hospitals is linked to the resurgence of viruses such as Covid-19 and people delaying medical care because of the outbreak, exacerbated by a high number of illnesses and burns. Under these conditions, hospital corridors are clogged, clinic waiting rooms are overcrowded, hospitalizations require hours of waiting, and children’s hospital occupancy rates exceed 100 percent.