As someone who has seen first hand how this teams helped alleviate stress, this just makes me sad.
Not sure how I feel about this.
On the one hand, those are resources that could be helping to bring down wait times. If our baseline services were better, it’d be an unnecessary role.
On the other hand, those services make going to the hospital a more humane experience, and seem like they’re quite beneficial right now. And until wait times are actually under control, managing the stress of patients seems like it should be an important hospital activity.
CHEO says they have “a separate patient experience department that supports families across the hospital,” but how much of that staff is present in the ER area? I don’t rightly know, but I’m not filled with confidence.
That room was hell when I was there. It’s one thing waiting a long time, it’s another in a room full of sick crying kids. The staff with the carts were agents of mercy for everyone