It’s another busy fall in Canadian hospitals, with emergency department closures, long wait times, and ongoing staff shortages all making headlines.
The situation can turn deadly: Two people died while waiting for care at the Anna-Laberge hospital in Châteauguay, Que., just last week.
And as health-care teams remain dangerously overstretched, they’re also grappling with the pressure of what some physicians are calling a “new norm” for seasonal illnesses — a range of viral and bacterial infections all back in circulation, with COVID-19 still chief among them.
“This is probably the first year since COVID started where we are seeing the anticipated viruses, the anticipated
