Toronto District School Board: Sick Kids

Primary Care Physician Dept: According to a Toronto District School Board survey, approximately 15 per cent of children in Toronto do not have a primary care physician. Our health-care services are geared toward a 9-to-5 orientation, yet increasingly, poor families who have to work during the day cannot attend health-care services and must resort to after-hours facilities that can accommodate their schedules, according to The Star. Why is this happening and i work in one of the best emergency departments in the world at Toronto s Hospital for Sick Children. However, the more I work at Sick Kids, the more I recognize a significant unspoken problem that we are trying to battle, which is trying to deliver primary health-care service to the most disadvantaged children and families. Where do these children go? Walk-in clinics that are often not equipped to handle children, pediatric urgent care clinics, and more often than not, Sick Kids emergency, because of our brand name and expertise. From just eight years ago, when I started, our numbers have climbed from 45,000 children 2003-2004 to about 63,000 children 2011-2012 per year, an increase of 40 per cent! (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.