On Thursday, he said, crowding was so bad that he was able to admit one patient only after the ambulance crew agreed to leave its stretcher. Today, however, few Canadians would recommend their system as a model for export. Improving health care should be the federal government's top priority, said 93 percent of 3,000 Canadians interviewed last month by Ekos Research Associates. It has become the number-one problem for Qu b cois and for Canadians. In Toronto, Canada's largest city, overcrowding prompted emergency rooms in 23 of the city's 25 hospitals to turn away ambulances one day last week.
Patients recuperate more slowly in the drafty, noisy hallways, doctors report.
On the Pacific Coast, ambulances filled with ill patients have repeatedly stacked up this winter in the parking lot of Vancouver General Hospital. Maureen Whyte, a hospital vice president, estimates that 20 percent of heart-attack patients who should have treatment within fifteen minutes now wait an hour or more. The shortage is a case of supply not keeping up with demand. During the 1990s, after government deficits ballooned, partly because of rising health costs, the government in Ottawa cut revenue-sharing payments to provinces by half, by some accounts. Today, the federal budget is balanced, but seven hospitals in Montreal have been closed, and 44 hospitals in Ontario have been closed or merged.