{"id":360306,"date":"2026-04-02T13:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360306\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T13:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:06:19","slug":"office-space-for-emergency-care-east-end-toronto-hospital-says-patient-demand-is-more-than-double-capacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/360306\/","title":{"rendered":"Office space for emergency care: East-end Toronto hospital says patient demand is more than double capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

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A major hospital in Toronto\u2019s east end is looking for creative ways to expand emergency care in a limited space as patient demand has grown to more than double the department\u2019s capacity, with the surrounding population still growing significantly, officials say.<\/p>\n

When the emergency department at Michael Garron Hospital was designed 30 years ago, it was built to care for about 150 patients a day, says chief medical director Dr. Kyle Vojdani. But as the population has grown, he says it now sees more than 300 patients daily.<\/p>\n

That amounted to about 107,000 patients last year in a space designed to see about 50,000 annually, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve absorbed waiting room spaces. We’ve absorbed lounges. We’ve absorbed conference room spaces,\u201d Vojdani said. \u201cMost of these spaces were never designed for clinical care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rooms surrounding the emergency department have been annexed to increase capacity, Vojdani says. A corridor of offices, for instance, is now used to receive pediatric patients, with the number of child patients has going up nearly 70 per cent over the last five years, he says. The number of adults has gone up roughly 35 per cent, he says.<\/p>\n

\"ADr. Kyle Vojdani says Michael Garron Hospital’s emergency department is already serving more than twice as many patients than it was designed for, as east Toronto’s population continues to grow. He says the hospital expects to serve another 50,000 residents in the next five years. (Talia Ricci\/CBC)<\/p>\n

While the extra space has helped, Vojdani says most of it was never designed for clinical care. That can pose a challenge, as about 95 per cent of emergency visits are what Vojdani calls high-acuity cases, which include heart attacks, strokes, sepsis and broken limbs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that we’ve had to be creative in the way we deliver care to ensure that we’re able to provide the highest quality care to all our patients,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To increase efficiency and see more patients, staff have also been using technology like remote monitoring, wait-time clocks and artificial intelligence, says Dr. Carmine Simone, executive vice-president of medical operations, partnerships and innovation at the hospital. He says AI has already improved doctor efficiency by 10-15 per cent by helping with bureaucratic work.<\/p>\n

Province says funding has increased<\/p>\n

Still, officials have been in talks with the provincial government, Simone said, advocating for more resources and more space, as well as renovations to existing space.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome hospitals have seen a decrease [in patient volumes] since COVID,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’ve seen year-over-year growth. And so because of that, we’ve had very unique challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The province has increased funding for the Toronto East Health Network, of which Michael Garron Hospital is the anchor site, by 55 per cent since 2018, a Ministry of Health spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is in addition to the $44 million we have invested in hospitals to reduce emergency department (ED) wait times and, $10 million to upskill 1,000 nurses to work in emergency departments,\u201d said Satnam Grewal in the statement.<\/p>\n

WATCH | What’s in the new Ontario budget for hospitals?:\"\"<\/p>\n

Ontario budget has more money for hospitals, but is it enough?<\/p>\n

The Ontario budget includes more money for hospitals. But it’s far below what hospital leaders were hoping for. Meanwhile, the finance minister says hospitals need to be careful with how they’re spending their money. Queen\u2019s Park reporter Lorenda Reddekopp has more.<\/p>\n

The province included a four per cent increase for hospital funding in its new budget presented last month. The Ontario Hospital Association’s president recently said costs in the sector are rising at a rate of six per cent annually, in part because of Ontario\u2019s growing, aging and more medically complex population.<\/p>\n

Michael Garron Hospital is expected to serve an additional 50,000 residents in east Toronto in the next five years, according to Dr. Vojdani. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-360306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}