Situation in Montreal’s pediatric ERs is ‘like a horror film’

The strain keeps intensifying amid an unprecedented number of sick kids at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and CHU Ste-Justine. Can a new crisis cell formed by Quebec’s health minister help?

Nadal Chacon with her four-year-old daughter Anastasia in the Montreal Children’s Hospital emergency waiting room on Friday October 28, 2022. PHOTO BY DAVE SIDAWAY /Montreal Gazette

Across Quebec, emergency rooms are under siege as a hobbled health system is taxed by staff shortages, a lack of access to family doctors, an aging population and patients suffering from a range of ailments that may have gone unchecked during the pandemic. But the Montreal Children’s, which is part of the McGill University Health Centre, and the Centre hospitalier universitaire Ste-Justine are beset by a crisis all their own.

Occupancy hit 250 per cent at the Children’s and 300 per cent at Ste-Justine last week. A perfect storm has driven volumes to these unprecedented levels. More @ Source: montrealgazette.com