The COVID-19 pandemic

[jeffster]

Can you imagine having a heart attack, and calling 911, and being told, that no ambulance is available...you could wait half an hour?

How much does a half hour delay affect survivability in case of a heart attack?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.6322717

Why is this acceptable to people?

And then start sending fire trucks out for ambulance calls because “they can get there faster”. As if the problem isn’t simply a lack of ambulance capacity and/or ER capacity. I thought I heard something about ambulance crews having to stand around at the hospital with patients who haven’t been fully admitted to the hospital until they’re officially handed off. Rules are more important than saving lives.

This is the problem.

There are solutions to this issue, but for whatever reason, and I don't want to say that there is some gaslighting going on here, but solutions aren't being found. Almost like it's intentional.

I do have family that work in the hospital and I heard things that made me sick -- that was specialty doctors, like oncologist, as well as the nurses that help them, are being sent home. Apparently this is widespread in Ontario, with doctors and nurses not working, due to Covid.

Not sure if it's for financial reasons -- too many doctors and nurses working with covid patients but not enough money? Or is it a bed shortage?

Speaking of beds, I found this article from 2011 -- it literally spelt out how Ontario was headed for disaster due to the amount of beds that had been closed (the NDP had closed the most number of beds from 1990-1995).

Almost 30,000 hospital beds have been closed in Ontario over the last 30 years -- 18,500 since 1990, the report said. The number of psychiatric and rehabilitation beds have increased, but those gains were offset by cuts to acute care and complex continuing care beds.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/shortage-of...t-1.672996

From 1981 to 2011 you had PC's cutting beds, you had Liberals cutting beds, you had NDP cutting beds, you had PC's cutting beds again, then you had Liberals cutting beds again.

A loss of almost 19,000 beds is incredible, especially with a province that had 8.6 million people in 1981 and 12.8 million by 2011.

Also found this:

People are often surprised to learn Ontario has very low numbers of hospital beds, compared to countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The province has 2.3 beds per 1,000 people, fewer than 31 OECD counties. Only Mexico, Chile and New Zealand have fewer.

But provincial policy-makers don’t see that as a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s by design and it’s a point of pride, proof of a highly efficient system.

Ontario has purposely shrunk its hospital system. In 1990, there were 33,403 acute-care hospital beds, according to the OHA; today there are 18,571.

and this:

But there has been something different about this year’s surge in Ontario, according to numerous hospital CEOs interviewed by the Star — a handful on the record, but most off.

It was bigger than in years past and caught many by surprise. Patient capacity at about half of Ontario’s 145 hospital corporations exceeded 100 per cent and reached as high as 130 per cent, according to figures requested by the Star from the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA).

You'd think this was taking place today -- but no, this is 2017.

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017...paces.html