'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
A flu season that started early, hospitalized far more children than usual and overwhelmed emergency departments has revealed that Canada's health-care system is chronically underfunded when it comes to the most vulnerable citizens, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist says.
Dr. Jesse Papenburg, who works at Montreal Children's Hospital, said a system that was already struggling with a surge of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, on the heels of COVID-19 is now overwhelmed in much of the country.
"Certainly, Ontario and Alberta in particular have been hit very hard with an early and really quite explosive influenza season in pediatrics when it comes to more severe disease requiring complex hospitalization. And we're also observing in Montreal as well that our influenza admissions are really starting to pick up," he said.
The last week of November saw the highest number of pediatric hospitalizations for a single week in the past decade, said Papenburg, who is also an investigator for IMPACT, a program that monitors hospitalizations for vaccine-preventable diseases at 12 children's hospitals across the country.
A typical flu season sees about 1,000 kids admitted to hospital. Due to pandemic public health measures, he said last season saw only 400 and there were none the season before that.
Up to the end of November, over 700 children had been hospitalized with the H3N2 strain of the flu, which typically takes a toll on older adults.
But the season could continue until March or April, Papenburg said of the unexpected epidemic.
"When you're already stretched to the limit under normal circumstances and there's something exceptional that takes place, it really has a greater impact on the type of care that we can deliver to Canadian children," he said. "It's unacceptable, in my view, that this is happening, that we are having to delay important surgeries for children because we need those resources for dealing with acute respiratory infections."
While the number of RSV hospitalizations is stabilizing, there's still a "significant burden of disease requiring complex hospitalization," he said of the Montreal hospital.
Alex Munter, president of Ottawa pediatric hospital CHEO, said the Red Cross will be helping take some of the pressure off critical-care staff starting this week.
He said two teams of nine people will work rotating overnight shifts and that some will be porters while others get supplies or sit with patients.
"Having these Red Cross teams on-site will allow us to send back redeployed staff to their home base," he said.
"The test positivity rate last week for flu was 30 per cent compared to 10 per cent at the end of October. That's a big increase and it's still climbing so flu hospitalizations are increasing and RSV is plateauing," Munter said.
CHEO, including its emergency department and urgent care clinic, is also getting help from pediatricians, family doctors and nurses in the community while some patients are being transferred to adult hospitals, Munter said.
"We can't run our hospital this way in perpetuity. I think the moral of the story here is that we have undersized child and youth health system in Canada."
SickKids in Toronto continues to see high patient volumes in the pediatric intensive care unit and since November has reduced the number of surgeries so staff can be redeployed to provide care in that unit.
"We have been co-ordinating closely with other hospital partners that have the ability to care for some pediatric patients," the hospital said in a statement, adding it is not currently seeking staffing support from external organizations.
Dr. Shazma Mithani, an emergency room doctor at both the Stollery Children's Hospital and Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, said a temporary closure of a pediatric hospice in Calgary is "tragic" as staff are being diverted to a children's hospital.
"It means that kids who are dying are not getting the palliative and comfort care that they deserve and need, and that acute care is taking priority over that," Mithani said.
Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has said Ottawa recently gave provinces an additional $2 billion as calls grow for both levels of government to do more to help hospitals facing unprecedented challenges.
Mithani said funding has to be targeted for children's hospitals and could also go to staffing after-hours clinics, for example.
She said people planning large indoor gatherings over Christmas and for New Year's Eve should consider scaling back, while schools should transition to temporary online learning if they have a large number of viral illnesses
Health officials also need to make a concerted effort to educate the public on the importance of vaccination amid misinformation on social media, Mithani said.
"The most vulnerable people in our society are suffering as a result of the decisions that adults made. That's what's happening here, that kids are suffering from the poor decisions of adult decision-makers who can't seem to do the right thing in order to protect our kids."
With files from Jordon Omstead in Toronto
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2022.
This story is produced with the financial assistance of The Canadian Medical Association. It has no say in editorial choices.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.