If you think wait times at Toronto hospitals are already too long, just wait until 2036. <\/p>\n
Twenty-five years from now, Toronto is expected to have one million new residents. Its projected the GTA will reach 9.2 million by 2036, a 44 per cent increase from 2011. <\/p>\n
Density is rapidly increasing to well above the old city average of 4,077 people per square kilometre, a trend expected to continue to intensify in coming decades. <\/p>\n
The citys health-care services, particularly hospitals, are already plagued by long wait times and stretched resources. The average current wait time in a Toronto emergency room is about eight hours. <\/p>\n
So what needs to happen to keep quality health care from taking a dive? <\/p>\n
Its a question that must be addressed if the province is to prepare for the coming growth in Canadas biggest city. <\/p>\n
Dr. Tarek Sardana, president of Orleans Urgent Care in suburban Ottawa, said health-care delivery in high-density urban cores like Toronto could benefit from facilities similar to the one he leads. He describes it as a walk-in clinic on steroids. <\/p>\n
Since opening in 1994, at a time when hospitals were facing budget cuts and ER-trained staff were losing their jobs, the Orleans clinics, staffed with emergency-experienced staff, have seen 60,000 patient visits on average annually. <\/p>\n
We fill a niche between the hospital, big-city stuff, and the family doctor, Sardana said, adding that most of the costs of a visit there are covered under OHIP. Urgent care, if done properly and not affiliated with a public facility because costs go up in the right spots, where there are crowded emergency departments and difficulty accessing care, they could fill the gap. <\/p>\n
The cost of seeing a single patient, who is typically treated and out the door within a few hours, is minimal next to the single-patient cost at a hospital. <\/p>\n
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Density and the city: How will Toronto health care cope with population growth?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you think wait times at Toronto hospitals are already too long, just wait until 2036. Twenty-five years from now, Toronto is expected to have one million new residents. Its projected the GTA will reach 9.2 million by 2036, a 44 per cent increase from 2011. Continue reading