Advocating for Better Patient Care in Canada

"Advocating for better patient care, health system reform, and physician rights is a core physician competency and professional responsibility."

"[The organization] unequivocally condemns all forms of workplace harassment, bullying and intimidation of emergency physicians by organizational and system-level administrators, colleagues, medical leadership, health system officials and politicians."

"[Harassment creates] toxic work environments [while undermining patient safety and contributing to physician burnout]."

Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians

 

"It was the perfect storm of overcrowding in the hospital and the emergency department, staff shortages, too many sick patients and too few available ER [emergency room] beds."

"We talk about cracks in the system. But this is when the roof has fallen in. It truly has failed when we can't treat the sickest patients in our emergency department in a timely manner."

Kaitlin Stockton, British Columbia emergency physician

 

"The bullying and harassment, unfortunately, is done by all levels -- by managers, by anybody in admin; it's been done by very senior physicians who hold administrative positions, as well as administrators who hold positions of power."

"Basically, they set up the conditions for constructive dismissal using everything they can. It's the slow bleed out of a care provider. They make it impossible to work. And we've seen that: You ask any physician who's been around for a while. We've seen that."

"The  ORs [operating rooms] can shut down at four o'clock, five o'clock, unless there's an emergency. The [wards upstairs] can say, 'No, we're full', because they have safety concerns, and rightly so."

"The emergency, we never close our doors."

Dr. Trevor Jain, emergency physician, Prince Edward Island 

Across Canada, emergency rooms are routinely operating beyond 100 per cent capacity. Photo by John Mahoney/Postmedia

 

Emergency doctors in Canada have struck a position, demanding protection against harassment and bullying by administration when they speak out about their experiences as responsible physicians struggling with an increasingly impossible situation in trying to treat people who show up at hospital emergency rooms hoping for medical attention, but finding hugely extended wait times because there are too few doctors available, nurses run off their feet, and an increasing population making more demands than ever on the country's universal health care system.

 

Physicians (and nursing staff) witnessing people in agony of pain, uncertainty and fear and feeling themselves unable to respond adequately as they are meant to do, under the weight of their belief in the Hippocratic Oath, do their utmost and frustratingly find it is never enough to stem the rising tide of  health service inadequacy in Canada. When doctors facing situations of pending death should attention not immediately be shifted to those suffering and waiting, raise their voices about unreported deaths resulting from dangerous ER overcrowding, they become themselves victimized by hospital administrators who want to hush up any pending controversy. 

 

"The plethora and huge amount of harassment and bullying emergency physicians are experiencing across the country for shedding light on dangerous overcrowding conditions, lack of [patient] flow and a pandemic of  unreported deaths in our waiting rooms" has led the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to launch a demand for "effective and enforced" whistleblower protection for physicians who risk personal and professional persecution when they are driven by compassion and caring for the patients under medical duress whose lives are put at risk by such medical inadequacies.  

 

A new report finds that deaths while waiting for medical procedures is up 64 per cent over the last five years in Canada. Photo by Getty Images

 

The Fraser Health Authority, as an example, was sued by B.C. emergency doctor Kaitlin Stockton after she was essentially fired following the posting of a sign in a Port Moody, B.C. ER in 2024, to alert patients of unacceptable the pending wait times they faced. Although Dr. Stockton was one among a handful of colleagues who posted the warning, she was singled out, bullied and threatened once the story of the sign became fodder for area news outlets. Dr. Stockton stated she was threatened and harassed for speaking out and for asking the hospital to transfer admitted patients to various areas of the hospital and call "Code orange" to respond to incoming patients. 

 

Dr. Paul Parks, an Alberta  emergency physician, reported a "near-miss" with  a patient having chest pain, examined while standing in a hallway, no empty stretchers available. The patient was found to have a life-threatening blood clot. In another instance, a woman in her 50s in a "confused/altered" state, unable to walk, arrived at an Alberta ER. "She was flagged for MD assessment still confused after 4 hours waiting in a wheelchair. It became clear something was terribly wrong when she was in a proper treatment space; a CT scan showed a  bad bleed in her brain, requiring emergency intubation and transfer for neurosurgery. She could have easily died waiting for care", stated Dr. Parks.  

 

"There is still a tonne of fear around physicians being retaliated against, losing their job, losing their licence. You lose your licence, you're done. Your career is over."

"But if people can't rely on health-care providers to be their voices, especially those who can't advocate for themselves, who is going to advocate for them?"

"[Whistleblower legislation isn't enough]; It needs to be visible, and it needs to be enforced."

Dr. Kaitlin Stockton 

 

"So, when you walk into the waiting room and there's people lying on the floor, people leaning against the walls, people in distress, people who don't have a family doctor, people with post-op complications, 84-year-olds waiting 12 hours -- that should be a huge red flag that multiple canaries have died and the system is in distress."
"You can't access primary care? 'Go to emerg'. Postop problems from the operation yesterday? Go to emerg. 'I can't look after my loved one anymore'? Go to emerg. A nursing home says, 'This patient has become too difficult for us to manage'? Go to emerg."

"We've become the 'easy button' for the Canadian healthcare system."

Dr. Trevor Jain  

Patients left in the hallway due to an at capacity emergency room at the Humber River Hospital in Toronto. Photo by Nathan Denette /The Canadian Press

 

DIE: Diversity, Inclusion, Equity

"To sit here and talk about facts and figures and then walk into the classroom tomorrow and say 'Canada is just as bad as the United States', I think we are doing an incredible disservice to our learners."

School Principal Richard Bilkszto, Toronto & District School Board 

"We are here to talk about anti-Black racism, but you in your whiteness think that you can tell me what's really going on for Black people?"

"At least [the U.S.] had a fighting posture against at least the monarchy, here we celebrate the monarchy, the very heart and soul and origins of the colonial structure."

DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) trainer Kike Ojo-Thompson, CEO, KOJO Institute

"[Thanks to the KOJO Institute for] modelling the discomfort administrators may need to experience in order to disrupt [anti-Black racism]."

Toronto & District School Board Superintendent

"Based on the information on file, I am satisfied that the conduct of the speaker ... was abusive, egregious and vexatious, and rises to the level of workplace harassment and bullying."

"[The DEI trainer intended to] cause reputational damage and to] make an example [of the principal."

Worker's Compensation Board

A Toronto District School Board sign is shown in front of a high school in Toronto. Photo by The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn

There seem to be few public schools and academic institutions in North America currently that haven't been invested in workplace diversity, equity and inclusion training; sensitivity awareness by 'white colonialists' to the 'lived reality' and historical colonialism of typical 'white supremacists', a learning issue that has extended to businesses and governments in this age of progressive wokeness. Richard Bilkszto, a principal with the TDSB, is suing the board for its failure to defend him during a hostile DEI training session.

 

Mr. Bilkszto has a 24-year career as a principal behind him. He is quite aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon the teaching profession, relaying to young students the fundamentals of a good education in the primary subjects of exposure; language, geography, history, science and economics. He previously taught at an inner-city school in Buffalo and is well versed in how Black and white students were treated. He took offence at Canada being singled out as the greater harbourer of racism.

For her part, Ms. Ojo-Thompson set out to teach the class she was addressing of education administrators that Canada's status as a monarchy represented a marker of racism. The British monarchy, in fact, outlawed slavery long before the U.S. did, and Canada itself had very few Black people held as slaves. The Underground Railway from the U.S. to Canada was a conduit to safety. It can be assumed that this DEI educator either was ignorant or chose to bypass the historical fact that African tribes were heavily involved as slavers.

She is the chief executive of an enterprise with clients in public institutions with listed clients that include the RCMP, the government of Ontario, the CBC, a number of universities and the federal government itself, enjoying service contracts in the interests of instilling a higher sense of sensitivity in employees to Black victimhood. In this instance, Mr. Bilkszto responded that racism is real with a need to improve the situation but that Canada remains a fairer place than the U.S., belying the trainer's contention otherwise. 

Another training facilitator with KOJO who was present at the session told Mr. Bulkszto "if you want to be an apologist for the U.S. or Canada, this is really not the forum for that". To which Ms. Ojo-Thompson added by instructing the class that "your job in this work as white people is to believe", not to question.

The day following this exchange of opinions, Mr. Bilkszto was berated by his supervisors about his "male white privilege" and "fallout" from the training.

In a follow-up training session, trainer Ojo-Thompson referrered to the principal's comments at the previous session as an example of "resistance" that supports white supremacy, explaining that his reference to "facts" represented an effort to derail the conversation and discredit her words. She encouraged everyone present to push back when they see others being "accosted by white supremacy".

The Toronto School Administrators' Association and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board supported Mr. Bilkszto's claim for workplace harassment leading to sick leave, calling for an investigation into the incident, though no investigation was initiated. However, the worker's compensation board awarded loss of earnings benefits for chronic mental stress.

The Toronto & District School Board itself is now under mental stress, since it decided in turn to issue a statement of claim against the KOJO Institute, alleging the DEI consulting firm was negligent, in breach of contract by humiliating, harassing and defaming their staff principal. Although Mr. Bilkszto, a contract principal, returned to work following six weeks of sick leave, he was not reinstated to the position he held prior to the DEI confrontation.

His work with the school board has been curtailed and another contract for a principal term was revoked. He is now seeking $785,000 in damages. It is clear that the school board, fearing they will be held liable for the hefty damages against them, will sue for a like amount from the DEI consulting firm to cover their liability.

But the court filings for these lawsuits render a birds-eye view of relentless workplace DEI training, that relies on coercion and ridicule to ensure that employees are forced to accept a litany of charges of racialist, ahistorical contentions. Any who fail to appropriately submit to the charges might find themselves being ordered to attend re-education sessions.

KOJO Institute is a leading consultancy that partners with organizations to unlock their potential by navigating the challenges connected to equity, bias, diversity, inclusion anti-oppression and anti-racism.

For over 20 years, KOJO Institute has designed scalable transformation frameworks that cultivate employment equity, cultural change, education and organizational development that drive positive social and business outcomes. Inclusive Change Drives People We deliver innovative solutions that achieve equitable outcomes, improve culture, and produce transformational results. KOJO web page Kike Ojo-Thompson, Founder & CEO