Almost 12K children on waitlist for surgeries in Ontario

Officials at four major pediatric hospitals in Ontario are calling on the provincial government for funding to ease their surgical backlog.

A bad strain of the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, have overwhelmed the McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton, Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre and CHEO in Ottawa.

The hospitals say that surge has dwindled after three challenging months that saw surgeries cancelled and staff redeployed to assist overburdened emergency departments and intensive care units.

However, the surgical wait-list continued to grow during that period of time.

Nearly half of the 11,789 children on the list are waiting more than the clinically recommended wait times.

Hospitals are seeking more long-term help from the province to tackle the wait list, speed up surgeries and expand emergency departments.

While they appreciate Ontario’s investments in boosting ICU capacity, they say investments are needed in the rest of the system.