Pandemic exposes issues affecting health care

COVID-19 strained the system, but many problems have been decades in the making

As we head into a provincial election, the major political parties are promising significant investment into health care. This is welcome news for a sector that is facing a constellation of crises like never before.

Every day, I am awestruck as health-care workers manage to meet the needs of the people they care for, no matter the circumstances. And every day, I am also saddened by the thought that it shouldn’t be this hard to deliver health care in Canada in 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained our health-care system, but many of the problems we face have been decades in the making.

Two facts set the stage. The first: Ontario has very few hospital beds when compared with other provinces and countries.

In the two decades leading up to the pandemic, the number of hospital beds in Ontario stayed the same, despite population growth of 2.8 million people. The second fact is related to the first: Ontario has historically had fewer nurses than other provinces. In 2020, Ontario had the lowest per capita nursing numbers in Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the thin margin of capacity and safety we work within.

With each COVID wave, mandatory slowdowns of non-urgent care have resulted in long wait lists for surgical and other procedures; almost 600,000 fewer surgeries were performed in Ontario in the first 22 months of the pandemic compared with 2019. People coming to the hospital today are also sicker, in part because they have had difficulty getting access to non-urgent care over the last two years.

As we work to catch up on this backlog of care, the pressures on the health-care system continue to mount. Every part of the system is under strain, and the domino effects are significant.

Today, up to 20 per cent of hospital beds in Ontario are filled with people who don’t need hospitallevel care but who are waiting for long-term or community care. This spring, that number reached an alltime high: nearly 5,800 hospital beds across the province were unavailable for the delivery of acute care because they were occupied by people awaiting different healthcare services.

Making matters worse, significant staff shortages are being seen across the health-care sector. There are currently thousands of vacant clinical roles across the province.

Demographic data suggest that things will only get more difficult. Early releases from the 2021 census indicate that the number of seniors over the age of 85 will triple in the next 25 years.

As people age, they typically need more health-care services. And yet people who are nearing retirement will soon outnumber the people who are old enough to enter the workforce.

Under these circumstances, how will we ever catch up on the accessto-care deficit and meet the growing need for health-care services?

Last week’s announcement of a funding investment in PRHC is very welcome news. On any given day, PRHC operates at more than 100 per cent of its 460-bed capacity by opening unfunded beds in “unconventional” spaces throughout the hospital. This ongoing funding will allow our operations to be more sustainable for our growing and aging community.

Also to be applauded are the major parties’ promises to invest in home and community care and mental-health and addictions programs and services, which will strengthen the entire continuum of care and help to alleviate some of the pressures on our hospital and others across Ontario.

At PRHC, we know that more investment will be needed in the years ahead so that we can continue to meet our mandate of delivering life-saving care in those moments when it matters most. Significant hospital growth and expansion will be necessary as the population in Peterborough and the surrounding region continues to grow and age. We also know that every part of the health-care system needs to be strong and supported if we are going to meet the challenges ahead.

Campaign promises are only the beginning; for the next government, the real work will be figuring out how to make sure all parts of the system — both the infrastructure and the people — are strong, resilient, and set up for success, ensuring that everyone has access to the care they need in the decades to come.

Significant hospital growth and expansion will be necessary as the population in Peterborough and the surrounding region continues to grow and age