The Emergency Room Is Closed?! - August 1, 2025

I’m hearing more and more about hospital emergency rooms being closed to the public, and when I first heard about this phenomenon I was taken aback.  How could this be? An emergency room is supposed to open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  

I think back to two incidents with my younger son (who is now 23 years of age, and quite healthy), where I had to take him to the emergency room.  The first instance was when he was about two years of age. We were visiting family in Toronto and I was on the back deck eating peanuts.  My son came over and was curious about what I was eating. Not thinking twice, I offered him a shelled, half a peanut. It was his first time eating peanuts; he ate it and wandered off.  A few moments later he was crying, and complaining that he couldn’t breathe. We could see his distress and when he indicated that he was having trouble breathing, we immediately rushed him to the nearest hospital emergency room. We just got in the car and drove. We picked the nearest hospital and assumed he would receive medical care when we arrived, which he did.  When he got to the emergency room, he vomited up the remnants of the peanuts and felt better, and we could see his breathing had returned to normal. The hospital kept him for observation for a few more hours, but the immediate crisis was over.  When we returned home to Ottawa, we scheduled him for an allergy test. With that testing we confirmed that he was allergic to peanuts and tree nuts, and so his trouble breathing after eating the peanut was a severe allergic reaction, with dire consequences.  The good news is that we learned of his allergy, he survived his first allergic reaction, and he’s lived a happy and productive life since then, avoiding nuts and carrying an epipen.

The second incident also involved my younger son, when he was three or four years of age.  I was at home with him, while my wife and older son were out.  The two of us were playing together, and my son wanted me to swing him around by his arms.  I did that but shortly  after I began to swing him, he started crying and complaining that his shoulder was hurting. After being unable to comfort him, I called a doctor friend and described to her what had happened and the discomfort my son was experiencing.  She advised that his shoulder or arm was likely dislocated from swinging around, which can easily happen with young children given how malleable they are at that age.  She told me to take him to the emergency room, as they could likely pop the shoulder back into place.  I rushed him to the nearest hospital and presented him to the emergency room staff, explaining what had happened.  Again, I didn't think twice about the emergency room being open and being able to get medical care for my son.  We simply jumped in the car and went.  The hospital staff were able to put his shoulder back into place and he felt immediate relief.  In fact he was laughing and happy, shortly after being treated by the doctor.  He’s played a lot of high-level sports since then and had no shoulder issues while playing those sports. 

In both cases we assumed medical care would be available to us when we arrived and that our priority of service would be based on the severity of our injury.  When I now read about emergency rooms being closed I can only imagine the panic that would set in knowing my son's medical care could be delayed indefinitely and his pain and suffering would continue.  Back then we didn’t have mobile phones, with Google or GPS, so searching for the next nearest hospital, that was open, wasn’t an option as it is now.. We take for granted that emergency room medical care is available to us 24/7.  

I’ve done some research to see how bad this situation is. I couldn’t find any statistics for calendar 2025, but here is what I did find:

*Canadian Emergency Rooms closed their doors for at least 1.14 million hours since 2019. - source - Globe and Mail

*Over the past three years, at least 38 hospitals with emergency rooms or urgent care centres in Ontario have experienced closures — about one in five. Most are in rural areas. - source - CBC

*Emergency Room closures began in early 2022. This is not being reported on, nor talked about, as I learned of these closures only a few weeks ago. 

*In 2023, Ontario recorded 1,199 emergency department closures (mostly temporary), resulting in the loss of more than 31,000 hours of emergency care.

*Many closures occur overnight or on weekends, but several hospitals have experienced longer or even indefinite closures

*Most emergency room closures in Ontario have occurred in small, rural communities, particularly in Midwestern Ontario and Eastern Ontario. These are often hospitals in towns with less than 8,000 people.

*Rural hospitals in communities with populations under 30,000 account for 99% of all Emergency Room closures in Ontario—despite making up only 40% of hospitals overall. For example:

*Glengarry Memorial Hospital in Alexandria had the highest number of Emergency Room closures in Ontario in 2022—38 closures over that year.

*Almonte General Hospital and Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital also saw multiple temporary overnight closures. Almonte ranked 9th in 2024 with 16 closures.

So why is this happening?  

The simple explanation is a shortage of medical staff, particularly in hospitals serving rural areas.  Small Emergency Rooms often have limited personnel —sometimes just one physician and two nurses per shift. Any absence can force a temporary shutdown in service. Emergency room closures in Ontario are not because of a lack of demand, but in fact due to a staffing crisis, which is made worse by government policy decisions and a lack of support for rural services.  Province-wide policies such as Bill 124 capped public sector wage increases at 1% annually, which is below the rate of inflation; this clearly impacts morale, and hampers retention and recruitment of staff. Making the situation worse, approximately 2.3 million people living in Ontario do not have a family doctor, causing more non-urgent cases to seek medical attention in Emergency Rooms, which burdens the already stretched system.

So what are we doing about this situation?

The Province of Ontario extended its Temporary Locum Program (which brings in doctors to rural areas, from urban areas, on premium pay) to help rural Emergency Rooms stay open. 

The Ontario government allocated funding for 400 physician placements tied to rural and northern emergency departments, and expedited licensing for internationally trained doctors aiming to work in underserved areas.The government pledged $44 million in July 2023 and later $500 million to increase nursing education and retention efforts. 

The province has also introduced modifications to the  “Community Commitment Program”; this program allow nurses and nurse practitioners to work across multiple hospitals, offering full-time hours and more scheduling stability, helping with retention and flexibility.

The nurse practitioner education system has been expanded: the Province has added 121 new positions for nurse practitioner training—increasing the total to 321, with a goal of having 350 nurse practitioners; and, invested $80 million to boost RN/RPN seats in publicly funded colleges/universities.  This will eventually add more nurses into the medical staffing system. 

We are also seeing expanded roles for pharmacists and registered nurses: registered nurses can now prescribe medications for select conditions, such as contraception and immunization, while pharmacists are now authorized to treat and prescribe for additional common ailments, addressing unnecessary Emergency Room visits. 

The Province is also investing in hospital infrastructure: $22 billion is being invested over ten years, on new facilities, expanding and renovating existing hospitals, with 50 such projects expected to add approximately 3,000 new hospital beds in Ontario by 2028. 

While it seems like the Province of Ontario is investing heavily in our health care system, it will take time to see the return in the form of better health care. I am keen to see the statistics for Emergency Room closures in 2025, to see if any of the investments made so far have had an impact.  I personally don’t know of anyone who’s had to drive to multiple hospitals for emergency room care, but this reported shortfall in emergency room service has to end.  I would have lost my mind if the Emergency Room was closed when I brought my young son there.