When Michael Garron Hospital in Toronto’s east end was built, it was designed to accommodate roughly 150 patients a day in its emergency room.

Recently, however, those numbers have surged to “unprecedented” levels as the area experiences “unique growth,” leading to 300 or more patients flowing through its doors every day.

“That puts obviously a lot of strain on the infrastructure, which is not only small but also dated,” Dr. Carmine Simone, VP of medical operations at the hospital, said in an interview with Global News.

As a result of the influx of new residents to the area, some of whom then become new patients, the hospital has been forced to “cannibalize” alternative spaces to treat patients.

“What we’ve been able to do over the past five years is use space that hasn’t been traditionally meant or built for clinical care,” Simone said.

“All of the offices, all of the storage space has been converted to clinic space… but we needed to really grow our footprint in the existing landlocked structure of the emergency department.”

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The strain on the hospital is one the president of CUPE’s Ontario council of hospital unions, Michael Hurley, says is not unique to Michael Garron.

“Big city ERs are facing this dilemma, in particular, of overcrowding, and it has unacceptable outcomes, including, of course, people being sent home without perhaps the kind of thoroughness that they should expect,” he said, “Or giving up in despair.”

Hurley blamed the provincial government for the strain, saying that while funding has increased in recent years, it has still failed to keep pace with inflation, population increases and an aging population.

A spokesperson for the provincial government touted health care funding it had announced in recent years.

“Our government is making record investments in our health care system, investing over $100 billion this year alone,” they wrote in a statement.

“We have added over 3,500 new beds in hospitals across the province, while increasing funding by 4 per cent to the hospital sector, for the fourth year in a row, bringing the total increase in funding to the Toronto East Health Network by over 55 per cent since 2018.”

Simone said Michael Garron was having “exciting” conversations with the province about funding, but underlined the urgent need for more money.

“For us to be able to improve the patient experience, provide an environment that is safe for our staff, we really need more investment in the infrastructure, as well as in more staffing investments,” he said.

— with files from Global News’ Nicole Di Donato 

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