Ontario nurse calls latest affected person deaths in Canada a ‘systemic failure’ of health-care system

An Ontario nurse is sounding off on the state of health-care programs throughout the nation after a person not too long ago died in an Edmonton emergency room, and a girl died of most cancers on Christmas after ready virtually two years for a prognosis.

Amie Archibald-Varley is an award-winning registered nurse who’s well-liked throughout social media and hosts the highest nursing podcast in Canada, The Gritty Nurse Podcast. She has been vocal a couple of latest incident by which an Edmonton man, Prashant Sreekumar, died whereas ready to obtain care within the Grey Nuns Community Hospital emergency room.

“It has become this very normalized situation where people are crying out in pain in the emergency department, and reassessments aren’t being done. People aren’t being checked in on,” Archibald-Varley stated in an interview with Now Toronto on Friday.

Archibald-Varley can be a nursing and well being fairness advocate and CEO of healthcare consultancy agency Advancing Health Equity, Together. She shared that in keeping with experiences, whereas Sreekumar was ready, he went to hunt assist a number of instances, saying that he was experiencing a 15/10 on the ache scale.

“There were reports of him being very nauseous, continually going to let them know that he was in pain,” she defined, including that the affected person skilled a cardiac occasion and died quickly after.

“He’s 44, classic chest pain, and he waited for eight hours until he was seen, and it was too late by then,” she stated.

She felt compelled to publish about his loss of life due to her advocacy work for high quality enchancment in emergency departments.

“I’ve seen these things happen, and they should never happen, but it was startling for me as a nurse, because chest pain is one of those things you hear, and instantaneously, there are so many different things that we do. So, we’ll do the ECG, we’ll do blood work, usually CTAs, too. It requires prompt assessment.”

She shared that as a nurse, it’s troubling to listen to that we’re in a time when professionals can stroll previous somebody crying out in ache or ignore their cries.

“I just felt horrible for that mom, that wife, because he leaves three children behind, and I think that we as a system have to do better.”

“A SYSTEMIC FAILURE”

In her social media publish, the well being fairness advocate calls Sreekumar’s loss of life a systemic failure and highlights the truth that Alberta’s health-care system has beforehand acknowledged systemic bias and racism inside their ranks.

“So, it would not surprise me if race was a factor in the way that this individual was treated,” she stated, explaining that racialized sufferers, particularly South Asian and Black males, usually have their cardiac signs dismissed or downplayed,” Archibald-Varley stated within the video she posted.

“When we ‘other’ patients, we stop seeing humanity, and we only see a busy waiting room. Systemic racism kills people.”

She instructed Now Toronto that it’s essential to recollect this occurred in Alberta, the place Bill 13: The Regulated Professions Neutrality Act is limiting professionals’ capability to speak about fairness, range and inclusion.

“Which is crazy, when one of the things that we do need to talk about is equity and anti-racism in health care. Because as much as people don’t want to talk about biases, racism is a social determinant of health,” she defined, including that not discussing the difficulty doesn’t cease it from taking place.

The ​​Canadian Nurses Association has warned that Bill 13 undermines fairness, ethics, and protected affected person care.

“We have to do something. This can’t be the status quo,” Archibald-Varley stated on Friday.

HEALTH CARE CRISIS: LOOKING ACROSS CANADA

Archibald-Varley relies in Ontario, and she or he says the scenario right here will not be a lot completely different, referencing 16-year-old hockey participant Finlay van der Werken, who died after ready eight hours to be seen in Oakville’s E.R. in 2024.

Emergency medication will not be the one space with prolonged wait instances, identical to Ontario and Alberta should not the one provinces impacted by the difficulty. Mandy Wood, a Nova Scotia radio broadcaster, died on Christmas Day 2025 of vulvar most cancers after ready for practically two years for a prognosis.

“These are horrifying stories. If we’re waiting this long for treatment, and we’re dying in EDS, or we’re getting these delayed diagnoses, then we’re doing a disservice to the model of public health care and primary health care in Canada,” Archibald-Varley defined. “If we can’t meet the needs of the people, I think that we’re in a dire situation here.”

She additionally pointed fingers at Ontario Premier Doug Ford, saying that whereas he campaigned on bettering well being care in Ontario, little has modified – and what has modified has been for the more serious.

“I haven’t heard much about what some of the changes are. We talk about opening up more beds, but… we can’t just open more beds if we can’t retain nurses at the bedside, or if we can’t find doctors to service rural areas,” she stated. “I think that there has to be much more done. And I don’t think Doug Ford taking a vacation till March is a good thing. He should be working on health care.”

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The nurse additionally raised considerations about the concept that the best way to handle the well being care concern in Canada is to look in direction of privatization, saying that governments should be held accountable for not doing extra.

“We have to hold them accountable for not doing the things that they should be doing to ensure that everyone has public access, timely access, quality of care when it comes to emergency departments or primary health care,” she shared, including that governments should not going far sufficient.

“They are dismantling the health-care system because there are profits to be made from health care. We’ve heard about it in the States,” Archibald-Varley defined. “I believe that truly we are, we should be fighting for better publicly funded health care, and we need to hold our leaders accountable, particularly our governments. Our provincial governments can do much more.”

A GoFundMe has been set as much as help Sreekumar’s household following his loss of life, which has raised greater than $175,000 as of publication.