Ontario is attempting to improve ER wait times through various means. These include financial penalties to the ERs where the wait is too long, trying to more efficiently distribute patients through the various ERs, and pushing people out faster to make room for other incoming patients. So here are some questions:
1) If ERs are cash strapped already, how will a financial penalty allow the ‘bad’ ERs from getting any better???
2) When the entire system is underfunded, squeezed, and abused, how will one small part of it get better while the rest of the system remains problematic?
3) How do you get patients out of the ER and onto a ward or a into a nursing home/chronic care facility quicker if those facilities are already stretched to the max and lack the appropriate funding???
People complain about all the waste and inefficiency in our healthcare system. So I ask one last question. After years and years of cutbacks, restructings, and improvements, how much more juice can be squeezed out of this old dried up lemon?

Martin Jugenburg,MD, FRCSC
Toronto, ON