The following is the letter I have personally submitted:
To Whom it may concern,
This government is seeking public input to end hallway medicine. Brampton is ground zero when it comes to the issue of hallway medicine. I am proposing that the current Ontario Government fund the second round of PMH funding and a third hospital with a 24/7 emergency unit and after-hours clinics that can keep pace with current and future needs of Brampton. The funds required can be allocated from the Health Infrastructure fund.
Brampton Civics’ Emergency department was designed for admitting 200 people a day. At the current rate it is admitting double the number of patients in the emergency department was designed for.
In 2018, more than 4,300 patients were admitted in the emergency department and were part of hallway medicine. This is one of the highest, if not the highest number of patients in hallway medicine. These patients did not have the dignity of care when seeking medical attention at Brampton Civic. Currently, Brampton has more than 600,000 people living in the city. This number is expected to grow in the coming years. Additionally, we have 1 bed for every 986 persons in Brampton at present. That number is unacceptable and dangerous. If another hospital is not made, that ratio of bed to the number of residents in the city will grow, putting health outcomes at significant risk and costing the province more money as the residents would be readmitted to seek care for the same concerns repeatedly.
I’ve heard first hand accounts of people driving as far as Oakville to seek healthcare in the middle of the night because they could not bear waiting any longer. It saddens me that this is a reality in my city. Being one of the largest cities in the country this is a sad set of affairs. Throughout my life, I volunteered in the Brampton Civic hospital during my high school years and I have personally seen the volume of patients grow steadily to an unacceptable rate.
Code Gridlock. In the last year Brampton Civic Hospital was in code gridlock more than 100 days. One of the highest days experienced at any hospital in the province. Code Gridlock entails patients receiving the care that the emergency department is mandated to provide them and are waiting for another department to admit them to receive further care. The department expected receive the patient cannot do so as the department is at capacity. The current provincial wait time for a bed at a hospital is 14.9 hours. Bramptonians that access care at Brampton Civic wait an average of 19.9 hours to receive a bed. This is the highest wait time in any urban city in Ontario. The latest day code gridlock occurred Jan 30 2019. This is unacceptable, and this number is expected to grow as the population of the city grows.
Brampton per capita is the lowest funded healthcare city as per its healthcare needs. Currently Brampton receives $611.35 per capita. Compare that to a neighboring city Mississauga, which receives 869.86 per capita. Hamilton a city double of size in population receives $1414.56. Such discrepancy in funding has resulted in the poor health outcomes citizens of Brampton have experienced over the years. It needs to stop. The city has no creative flexibility left to create a new healthcare provision model with such low healthcare dollar allocation as per its needs. Consider the metrics and evidence known to the government to make evidence-based policy to meet the needs of our city.
The number of hospital violence is also on the rise. Brampton is ground zero for this as well. Code White, when violence occurs on a hospital floor that requires security personnel to intervene is on the rise. The following information is the code white trend experienced by Brampton Civic: In 2016, it was 433 incidents, in 2017 it was 472 and in 2018 it is projected more than 640 code whites have occurred. Overcrowding leads to higher incidents code white and Brampton’s exponential growth in this health metric needs immediate intervention.
In the past year, we have been offered a bandage solution creating 28-32 more beds. It is not enough to address the care deficits our city has experienced over the years, the correct intervention is creating a new 24/7 emergency clinic, fund second round funding of PMH and create an after hour care clinics to divert low acuity patients out of emergency and provide timely care with dignity all Ontarians deserve.
In conclusion, all empirical metrics of care show that Brampton Civic Hospital is at minimum double capacity over its intended use. Poor health outcomes will cost more money and require more expensive interventions to stabilize the patients. It is the government’s best interest to rectify this by creating a new hospital with a much larger emergency and after-hours care program to deal with the different acuity of patients that live in Brampton. It is required, and it is high time. I am happy to meet with anyone to make sense of these concerns. I take pride that I live in Brampton. I know what my city can produce in terms of GDP. Give us the city we deserve to make Ontario strong. Brampton is still a growing community, if more developments are made in Brampton, to create a supply in the housing market to bring down prices, we need essential services to make our city attractive to buyers and make our city a prosperous community. Invest in Brampton, you wont loose. I guarantee that.
