April 30, 2026
By Iris Gorfinkel, Contributor
Iris Gorfinkel is a family physician and clinical researcher in Toronto.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell, “Animal Farm”
Last month, my 82-year-old patient spent two nights on a hallway stretcher in a Toronto ER, her head propped up on a folded blanket. The reason? There simply weren’t enough staffed hospital beds.
“We’re doing the best we can,” we reassured her.
We were, but the same can’t be said of the Ford government. If anything, it seems bent on dismantling public health care. Its laws have reduced staffing; lengthened ER waits and stripped away the dignity of Ontarians. It has done this by enacting three health-related bills that have turned moral injury into a daily reality for health-care workers.
Moral injury has many forms, but one happens when leaders’ decisions force workers to betray expected standards. I frequently have to beg patients with chest pain or shortness of breath to go to an ER because they dread the wait and losing their dignity. How am I supposed to defend that?
Read more at the Star.com
