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HUNDREDS OF SICK CHILDREN FILLED EMERGENCIES IN CANADA:
Sick children continue to fill pediatric emergency rooms in the city of Montreal. Hundreds are imported every day. They are often so sick that they have to be hospitalized.
Parents stay overnight in the hospital and wait up to 24 hours before they can see their children. The corridors are full of stretchers. Workers are working around the clock to care for more and more sick children.
Emergency physician Suzanne Vaillancourt told the Montreal Gazette she's never experienced it before. "We have never had so many children in the last 20 years that I have worked at the Montreal Children's Hospital."
Emergency departments are filling up across the province of Quebec. The occupancy rate of the hospital where Vaillancourt works is no less than 250 percent. Center hospitalier universitaire (CHU) Sainte-Justine has an even higher occupancy rate: 300 percent.
300 patients in one day
"We are seeing about 10 times more patients with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) than before the pandemic," Vaillancourt said. “The problem is that many patients are waiting to be admitted to the hospital, but at the same time we are treating all the other patients who come. It's hard to see parents who have waited 16 to 20 hours in some cases."
At CHU Sainte-Justine, head of the emergency department Antonio D'Angelo saw 300 patients enter in one day. To be able to treat everyone, nurses are working overtime and doctors are working night shifts more often.
"It's like a horror movie," the emergency doctor said.
source
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