Ontario’s acting Auditor General says there was no provincewide strategy to help hospitals prevent temporary emergency department closures.
Nick Stavropoulos has released an annual report that focuses on 12 value-for-money audits.
He has found hospitals continue to struggle with shortages of nurses and doctors and that patients are waiting an average of two hours before a physician assessment and there’s a 24-hour wait for an in-patient.
Stavropoulos says one in five patients who visited the province’s emergency departments were only there because they did not have a family doctor.
He also says hospitals are becoming more reliant on nursing agencies to fill gaps, which comes at a significantly higher cost.
Written by: The Canadian Press
