In My Opinion: The break that showed me our health care isn’t broken

By JENNIFER LEE

As I gripped the side of the basement desk that night, I knew something wasn’t right.

Soon I was hobbling into the emergency room at Michael Garron Hospital, unsure of what the night would bring. Past experience had taught me that emergency rooms could be unpredictable places, where time evaporated the way it did in a Vegas casino.

Sitting with a bag of frozen peas on my sore ankle, my eye was drawn to the bright flatscreens in front of me. I suddenly knew a lot more than expected: how busy it was in emergency that night and where I was on the list of patients waiting to be seen by a nurse. It was a relief to know there was order where I was expecting chaos.

From there, everything went surprisingly quickly. Signs on the wall showed I was in a rapid assessment stream. An X-ray was ordered and in little more than 20 minutes I was waiting in an exam room for a doctor to give me news.

It still seems a bit surprising – a broken ankle. Despite plenty of years playing sports and even bungee jumping, somehow this awaited me at the bottom of a carpeted staircase.

With a walking boot on, I was discharged home where I expected to wait for some time before hearing about my fracture clinic appointment. Wrong again. After a day or two of resting on the couch, I received a text confirming my first follow-up.

Looking back through the ride sharing app, the pace of care seemed a bit surreal. I arrived at emergency at quarter to 7 and was back at my front door two minutes after 9. It really did happen that quickly: the assessment, treatment and the follow-up plan.

You hear a lot of stories about how our health care is broken. I know those are not unfounded experiences and are genuine issues.

But my experience – especially here in the east end – is that there is an awful lot of quiet success happening.

The innovation in managing access to care and connecting patients to treatment in their community, so they can recover well at home – this is part of the story of Michael Garron Hospital, a place we’re all watching transform right before our eyes. A place where I spent the first week with my newborn son after he arrived at another hospital. A place where nurses and doctors gave the calm and re-assuring attention that two sleep-deprived new parents needed to help our son get a great start.

Then there was the support we received through their community clinics, to be reassured he was doing well, while helping us connect to his new doctor in our neighbourhood. Their pediatric ER, which feels like it’s been a gamechanger for parents, was also where an attentive pediatrician helped our son get rapidly assessed after a fall on the playground.

Not to mention the many ways that our hospital led the city, if not the province, in showing the power of community care during the COVID-19 pandemic. All of these happened over the past couple of years, as the place was transforming from the inside out.

Although the recent demolition has them looking a bit smaller these days, their presence remains strong.

For me, they’ve defined what a community hospital should be – a reliable neighbour who helps you out when you need it most, who makes you feel better knowing they are there.

• Jennifer Lee is a Toronto-based writer and communications professional. Find her on Instagram, Threads and Bluesky @jenleeitsme.