Doctor invites health minister Doug Ford to visit his ER to see ‘collapsed’ hospitals firsthand

A GTA ER doctor is inviting Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones on a tour of his ER department so they can witness first-hand the staffing shortage and crisis facing the provincial health system.

Dr. Nour Khatib first extended the invitation on social networks and again through an interview with CTV News Toronto.

“This is a true open invitation. I am a professional respectful person, there will be no hate, nothing but professional. I just want them to see what we are seeing,” Khatib explained.

It’s been a tough summer for Khatib.

Requests continue to arrive to pick up shifts outside the two urban hospitals where he usually works. Either because the ER is understaffed or in danger of closing.

To fill in the gaps, Khatib said he drove back and forth to rural Ontario hospitals three times in the past week. The emergency rooms are four hours away. She worked long shifts, she said, leaving her exhausted.

Back in town, he said emergency departments normally staffed with three doctors are sometimes down to two, and with nurses also in critical shortage, patients aren’t getting the attention or care they deserve.

Respiratory therapist Alisha Clark, left, and registered nurse Joy Turner rest in the employee break room in the intensive care unit at Humber River Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Tuesday, January 25, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ nathan denette

“The waiting room is packed, there are people waiting on the floor, there is blood on the floor from patients who are bleeding, there is a long line for triage, which means there is a line of people who don’t even know how serious it is. her illness”.

Khatib said that even after emergency room patients wait hours to be admitted to the hospital, he will see them wait up to two or three days for a bed.

To address the problem, he said he wants Bill 124 to be repealed, nurses’ salaries to be increased and a national licensing program to be established for doctors and nurses to work smoothly in all provinces.

But, he also says, to fix the problem, it must first be recognized, and one of the reasons he believes showing political leaders the situation on the ground is so important.

Dr. Nour Khatib invited Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones to visit her emergency room to see firsthand the province’s health care crisis. (Supplied)

“With the shortage, we are doing the work of others. I’m running IVs, I’m cleaning a room. I’m bringing patients. These are not typically things doctors would do, but we are doing them. My colleagues and I are doing that because we need to make the situation work,” she said.

“In fact, I’m scared for the fall and winter because I don’t know how this collapsed health system [handle] the volumes to come.”

Khatib is waiting to hear from the prime minister and the health minister. She said the hope is to help get health care in Ontario back on the right track.

CTV News Toronto has contacted the offices of the Prime Minister and Minister of Health and is awaiting responses.


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