Bigger, older population
emergency for hospitals
Comment, Jan. 8
As an older resident and an advocate for more and better home and community care, I was somewhat annoyed by this commentary on hospital emergency departments. There is a growth in the senior population, and it's true older people generally use more health-care services than do younger people.
Over the past few years, I've been in the ER two or three times. On each occasion, I've been impressed by the small number of seniors in the large and well-filled waiting room. So it does get tiring to be incessantly perceived as responsible for shortfalls and expected shortfalls in the health-care system.
Of greater significance, it was distressing to observe the fleeting references to other parts of the health-care system in this article. Alternative levels of care and home and community care were dealt with in one small paragraph. There was not one word about primary care, practitioners, prevention and management of chronic disease or the social determinants of health.
The article seems to strengthen the myth that hospitals are the primary answer to all of our health-care needs. Pouring money into hospitals rather than into those services that help to keep people out of hospital makes little sense.
Charlotte Maher, Care Watch, Toronto
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