What you loved and loathed last issue

Emergency Response

Alison Motluk’s investigation into hospital overcrowding provoked much finger pointing (Andrea Horwath grilled Kathleen Wynne about it at Queen’s Park during Question Period), and also provoked candid debate about the root of the problem and how to fix it:

“A focus on government ‘inefficiencies’ has forced hospital administrators to aim for roughly the same bed occupancy rates as that of Toronto’s homeless shelters—and we can see how that’s worked out. Rather than impose such slim margins of error, we should do as the private sector does: aim for overproduction. Corporate shareholders understand that it’s better to produce too many widgets than not enough. Ontario’s shareholders—the taxpayers—have even more reason to do so. After all, when demand outstrips supply, the result is more than just some unhappy customers. The result is dead customers.” —Jeremy Greenberg, Toronto

“Ontario cannot keep adding condo developments to the city of Toronto and not expect a health care crisis! More condos and more people necessitate more hospitals! The politicians need to make the developers more accountable!” —Tina Edwards, Thornbury “As a Toronto and Hamilton area emergency physician, I was unsurprised at the stories in ‘Hallway Health Care.’ This is my life. Emergency medical staff are the MacGyvers of the health care system, constantly being asked to do more with less. The number of in-patient beds is cut? The emerg will deal with it. Family doctors are overtaxed? The emerg will deal with it. No shelter beds on a cold night? The emerg will deal with it. It was, ironically, a flood in the ER, during which all the in-patients had to be moved out of the department, that showed me how efficiently emergency docs and nurses can work when we are able to take care of just emergency patients and not in-patients as well.

“I used to be proud of our health care system. Now it seems adrift, and politicians consider it political suicide to have frank conversations about how to fix it. Isn’t it time that, as a society, we have those difficult discussions? We are quickly running out of options to fund a system where everyone has rights but no one wants to pay for those rights. I’m no economist. I’m just a lowly front-line health worker. And despite everything, I truly love my job. Until I hear otherwise, I will keep a smile on my face and continue to try to navigate a confusing system to the best of my abilities so that my patients can get the care they need.” —John Sollazzo, St. Joseph’s Healthcare

The vast majority of responses came in the form of readers sharing their own hospital horror stories:

“Several years ago, my motherin-law fell and broke her elbow. Although she was treated at the hospital where she had been a nurse for years until retirement, the so-called fracture clinic was ‘closed’ for a week while they dealt with an ‘insect problem.’ As a result, her elbow never healed and her arm is now useless.” —Lou-Anne Balodis, Georgetown

“My grandfather shattered his knee and was admitted in Toronto. Immediately we drove down from Hamilton to see him. We got there, and they told us he’d left and showed us some forms that ‘he signed’ as he was discharged. Meanwhile, he was texting saying he was still there and that he could not walk. I called 911 and the police came and found him in a back hallway on a stretcher. He was left there and forgotten about. We brought him back to Hamilton and went to the General here. He was in surgery the next day.” —starscr3amsgh0st, Reddit

“The timing of this issue was ironic for me. In the first week of April, my father had a mild stroke, and I rushed him to the Rouge Valley Centenary hospital. While he was admitted that day, he remained in an observation section of the emergency department for two days, because there were no ward beds available. The observation section held 10 beds and was managed by two nurses.

“In those two days, a woman on one side of my dad who’d had a bad reaction to marijuana spent her days vomiting and screaming for the nurses. The man on the other side of my father was bedridden and unable to get to the washroom, so every bodily function occurred where he lay, and he was very vocal about his anxiety over that fact. The nurses had to ignore some of the pleas for their attention.

“I stayed with my dad for those days and had to face the task of sponging him daily since no one else had time for that.

“For the duration of his stay, I kept repeating to myself, please God, I never want to get sick, I never want to get sick.” —Roxanne Brown, Markham

“I too spent a long time at Sunnybrook, waiting in the ER. I was there for 17 hours, without any real treatment. I chose to go there as many of my specialists are on staff there. I was not given any food or water, even though I am diabetic. Eventually, when I finally got some food, I was yelled at for eating in the main room. As I waited and waited, new patients arrived constantly, mainly knife wounds and traumas. Eventually I asked if the only way I would get treatment was to stab myself.” —Joel L. Hertz, Toronto “Such an important and disturbing read. A family member of mine was discharged 48 hours after major brain surgery because there were no hospital beds, and the post-op care fell to me. If I hadn’t advocated and provided full-time care and navigation through the entire process, the outcome could have been very negative.” —Michelle Lea Kalman, Facebook

“My wife just had colon surgery. We had booked a semi-private room, and right up to going into surgery we were told that she had that semi-private room. When she got out, she was taken to a surgical stay ward instead—with 10 to 15 other people moaning and throwing up all night. The room is designed for a one-night stay and closed on weekends, so instead of the two- to three-night stay we were told she would need, they released her in less than 48 hours.

GET OUT ON THE WATER.

MALIBU 21 MLX

We’re not sure who made that decision, but it was based on bed availability and not health care.” —Steven of Ontario, torontolife.com

Courtroom Drama

When it comes to rape, the criminal justice system fails everyone. That was the main takeaway of “The Verdict,” Nicholas Hune-Brown’s story about two former York PhD students—Mandi Gray and Mustafa Ururyar—embroiled in a complicated sexual assault case. Readers were divided in their allegiances but unified in their frustration with the courts:

“I had no idea he had appealed. That he got off with a peace bond is deeply disturbing.” —Zuzu Petals, Facebook

“She ruined his life. He is innocent. Her life still goes on. Am I the first one to think, Pakistani guy vs. white woman.” —MB Wolfy, Facebook

“This is a very nuanced look at the Mustafa Ururyar case and the limits of the justice system when it comes to sexual assault.” —@rhrussell, Twitter

“ ‘The Verdict,’ if anything, convinces that it’s best for rapes to go unreported. I’ll have nightmares about that part with the lawyer asking a complainant about bowel movement pain after enduring brutal anal rape.” —@maidaceledonm, Twitter

“ ‘The Verdict’ presents some of the many difficulties associated with prosecutions of sexual assault. I found many of the comments thought provoking, but I strongly take issue with some of the criticisms of our judicial system. In particular, the reference to the ‘baroque mechanisms of the legal system—the elaborate rules, the silly gowns, the strict hierarchies and archaic language.’

“That legal system is one of the best in the world. Those elaborate rules are necessary. They help to provide structure and order. They allow judges, with the assistance of lawyers in those ‘silly gowns,’ to untangle complex and often emotionally draining disputes.

“Every profession has its own glossary of words that define process. The ‘archaic language’ may at times confound the public, but spend a day in an operating theatre in a hospital and see how many words you can decipher.” —Gary Joseph, MacDonald and Partners LLP

Faith Healer

In the May issue, Yonah Krakowsky wrote about how he squares his faith (he’s an Orthodox Jew) with his profession (he’s a gender-reassignment surgeon). Reaction ran along the lines of, “What a mensch!” “How cool is this guy??” and “He’s very handsome”…

“Just read this really beautiful piece in the May issue of @torontolife and suggest you do too if you need a bit of faith today.” —@MsEveThomas, Twitter

“I’m an Orthodox transgender Jew. Thank you for doing what you do. I wish surgery were affordable in the States. It’s going to be forever and a day before I have the money.” —@DanielleSATM, Twitter

Please email your comments to letters@torontolife.com, or mail them to Letters, Toronto Life, 111 Queen St. E., Ste. 320, Toronto, Ont. M5C 1S2. All comments may be edited for accuracy, length and clarity.