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Photo by Nathan Denette/CP

Still, this emergency situation was also a reminder of something else: hospitals in Toronto, and across Ontario, are dangerously overcrowded, which risks making mass-casualty incidents even deadlier. The international best-practice standard for hospital occupancy is 85 per cent — full enough to be properly utilized, with enough beds, equipment and personnel left over for sudden emergencies. Ontario hospitals routinely see more than 100-per-cent occupancy, however, forcing patients to remain in the ER while waiting for transfers to proper wards, causing patients to be treated in halls, offices and chapels.

This compromises patient care, burns out staff and leaves even major cities like Toronto, that are relatively flush with hospitals, hard-pressed to handle disasters when they strike. Sunnybrook was already at 111-per-cent capacity when the attack began. Every bed in the ICU ward was full. Only by rapidly shuffling patients around could the hospital properly treat the injured people it received.

Only by rapidly shuffling patients around could the hospital properly treat the injured people it received

This serious and long-festering issue is finally getting attention, with the contenders in the upcoming Ontario election all promising more beds in rehabilitation and long-term care facilities. Most of the overcrowding in the province’s hospitals is caused by delays moving patients out of acute-care beds to less-intensive facilities for recovery or continuing care, as there is not nearly enough capacity in the rehab and long-term care system, forcing patients to remain in hospitals, at great cost, far longer than medically necessary. This has been a problem long in the making. Monday’s events are simply another reminder that a chronically overburdened system can, and eventually will, cost lives.