Canada’s medical system continues to be pushed to unseen levels of demand, especially in paediatric hospitals, where a surge in respiratory viruses are driving a shortage of children’s medication, including a popular antibiotic.
After Justine Bell’s seven-year-old daughter woke up with a bad cold and congestion, her first thought was to check for Covid-19. It was not.
“The next thought was: what if she gets a fever tonight? Do I have any children’s Tylenol?” she says.
Bell couldn't find any in her cabinets, so she sent her husband to the pharmacy, where there was no cough syrup or no children's Tylenol.
Bell’s fear: a trip to the hospital.
“Oh my goodness I’ve heard the wait times at CHEO are incredibly long.”
Jennifer Tremblay has firsthand experience. A few weeks ago, her four-year-old daughter was sick with a fever, which after five days, spiked to 40 C.
That’s when she decided to head to CHEO, which had a line of patients waiting out the door.
“An hour and a half just to get triaged just to get registered so I could wait to see a doctor,” says Tremblay, who waited more than eight hours before making a tough decision.
“There were people waiting there thirteen hours. I left because my daughter just kept asking to go home and my daughter seemed to be okay enough to go to her own paediatrician the next day.”
Paediatric health care professionals are warning that most children’s hospitals across the country are operating at or well above one hundred per cent occupancy and are facing significant delays.
Health Canada says respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV, typically peaks in December and January, but has emerged earlier and more aggressively this year.
“There’s many different viruses that are circulating,” says Dr. Gurinder Sangha, Paediatric Emergency Physician with the Children's Hospital, London Health Science Centre. “What we’re seeing is sort of a confluence of all of them coming together which is what’s driving a lot of the volume that we are seeing.”
This has also resulted in a shortage of children’s medications including Tylenol, Advil and a common antibiotic, Amoxicillin.
“There is no global shortage of the active product ingredients or labour disruptions with factories and so forth," said Justin Bates, CEO of the Ontario Pharmacists Association. "his is driven by unprecedented demand that’s upward of 300 per cent more then we would typically see with the seasonal average consumption rates, so the manufacturers are trying to ramp up production,” says Justin Bates, Ontario Pharmacists Association CEO.
“There are three options that are available," he added. "the first would be to look at the tablets and the adult formulation and either crush those or split the pills based on the age and weight of the child and make.
"The other one is that many pharmacies can compound if they have the raw materials to make that liquid formulation but at that gets into short supply then that option becomes less available.
"The third one in some provinces pharmacists can prescribe in Ontario they would have to speak to the doctor to look to look at alternative antibiotics that can be prescribed," he said. "They may not be as effective but they can still help.”
While the federal government has committed to funding more money into healthcare, Bell, who is also a school trustee, wants to see more action from politicians at all levels to prioritize children.
“I need all of our leadership to step up and start giving us the concrete examples the concrete ways in which we can keep children safe and lower the burden on our emergency room,” she says. “If you put on a mask you help the people that are in the room you help to stop the spread of these respiratory infections.”