“I will say to these parents, I completely understand your anguish, your concern, but you have a government that has your back, you have a government that supports investment in our hospital system,” Jones said when asked by CP24 what would answer. to parents who wait hours in overworked emergency departments to see their sick children.
“You have a government that just four months ago passed a budget that had a $5 billion increase in the health care budget alone. We make these investments. We will continue to make these investments and I want to reassure parents that when your children need health care in the province of Ontario, you get it and you will continue to get it.”
Speaking to reporters at an announcement on hospital funding, he said the province had recently increased pediatric ICU capacity by 30%. However, he was unable to provide a number when asked how many children are currently in the ICU in Ontario, saying the number “keeps moving back and forth.”
This time last week, the Ontario Intensive Care Services daily census showed there were more children in intensive care in the province than the number of designated pediatric ICU beds.
Jones said she has also been coordinating with her federal counterpart to make sure more painkillers for children come into the country, but added that primary care doctors should do more to ensure children don’t end up in wards. emergencies.
“I would add one very important factor and that is we need to make sure that primary care professionals are seeing their patients before they have to go to an emergency department or a hospital,” Jones said. “We have a strong system when all the players work together. And we need all of these parts to be basically 100 percent functional.”
Pediatric intensive care units across the province have reported being overwhelmed in recent months as an early wave of flu and RSV hits children. While it is unclear exactly what caused the surge of illness among the children, hospitals are overcapacity and have had to transfer some children to other cities for treatment and convert facilities to provide extra capacity.
Earlier this week, the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore, urged people to cover up indoors, especially around small children, if you have even mild symptoms of illness.
Local and provincial health authorities, including Toronto’s top doctor, are also urging people to get their flu shots and COVID-19 boosters to help limit the spread of the infection.
A spate of infections among children has been exacerbated by shortages of painkillers for children, a problem the federal government said this week it is trying to remedy by importing more of the products, though it has so far given no details.
