Don't Have A Medical Emergency This Week

Wait until Smitherman & McGinty come up with another solution to the holes in the delivery of medical care, which btw we are paying an extra tax, and you can just add it to the other bullshit promises from the fiberals. Where are all the new nurses and how many of them are actually dealing with patients? Where are all the new doctors?

Plan to fix ERs coming next week
Oct. 18, 2006. 07:00 PM
CHINTA PUXLEY
CANADIAN PRESS

The province will unveil a plan next week to overhaul the province's clogged and understaffed emergency rooms, which may include improved working conditions and increased doctors' salaries, said Health Minister George Smitherman.

The plan stems from a joint government and Ontario Medical Association committee that has been studying problems in the province's emergency rooms.

It is expected to submit its findings to the government Friday and Smitherman said an action plan could be in place by next week.

"People should reasonably expect that we're going to turn this around just as fast as we can," Smitherman said.

Two weeks ago, Premier Dalton McGuinty vowed to stabilize the emergency room situation in Ontario and "leave no stone unturned."

Kitchener's Grand River hospital was hours away from shutting its doors recently when doctors in the department refused to work out of concern about exhaustion, patient safety and compensation. The province has since appointed an investigator to look into staffing problems at the hospital but still has seven vacant emergency-room shifts for the remainder of October.

A neighbouring hospital in Cambridge, Ont., brought in a private company to manage its emergency room when it faced its own staffing crisis. And Hamilton hospitals had to cancel at least 15 surgeries recently because of a shortage of beds, leaving patients stuck in the emergency department.

The government's action plan will include models on how emergency rooms can admit people more efficiently and move them to "a more appropriate place," Smitherman said.

The province will also have to address salary levels for doctors and working conditions in the emergency rooms, making them more appealing places to work, and doctors' salaries, Smitherman added.

"People can expect there will be action on all of those points," he said.

Still, many say Ontario's emergency room difficulties can't be fixed overnight.

Valoree McKay, CEO of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, said she hopes the plan will fix some of the problems but said many of the issues are systemic and need longer study.

"There is a lot of stress with emergency physicians because of the nature of the position and because of the fact that they often work unsociable hours," she said.

"I suppose there is always going to be high hopes that some solutions will come along and fix some of the problems."

Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer said the government has had three years to fix the growing problems in Ontario's emergency rooms.

In the meantime, she said morale is plummeting and doctors in her riding are overworked because there aren't enough physicians.

"There's not a lot of optimism that this report is going to address all of the dimensions of the situation," she said. "These people can't maintain that workload and the government has been asleep at the switch."

NDP Leader Howard Hampton said the government has to address the fundamental problem of bed and physician shortages if it is going to unclog emergency rooms.

"I don't see a plan to unclog hospital beds," he said. "I don't see a plan to move patients who are waiting for a long-term care bed into long-term care beds so I think the problem will probably continue."