The number of children waiting to be operated on at a hospital for sick children in Toronto has increased since the beginning of the pandemic.
Approximately 5,600 children, most of them under the age of 10, are currently waiting their turn to enter the operating room at SickKids.
As early as March 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, about 3,800 children were in line for surgery.
A SickKids spokesman was unable to speak to CP24 today, but they confirmed the above figures.
They also said that 61% of planned operations at SickKids are now outside the recommended clinical window due to the backlog. This is compared to 35% before the pandemic.
Speaking to reporters in the media on Friday morning, re-elected Prime Minister Doug Ford said children were “obviously” a priority when it comes to backlogs, noting that “other areas are also a priority”.
Ford then unexpectedly said it believed the computers had committed an investment of about $ 180 million to address the backlog in operations across the province.
“We will invest in this to make sure we clear up the backlog. And let’s hope that by the end of this year we will have a good part of them, if not all, to be cleared, the ministry told me, “he said. “We need to make sure that our operating rooms are open 24 hours a day, MRIs are open 24 hours a day, whenever possible.
Earlier, the Ontario Medical Association estimated that surgical backlogs in the province amounted to more than a million procedures.
He called on the province to fund a new model of outpatient health centers to help address the backlog.
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