Maskalyk observed that medical staff often experience deep distress when institutional barriers prevent adequate patient care.
“At the level of the doctor-patient relationship, we feel like we’re letting people down,” he said.
Catherine Varner, an emergency physician and deputy editor at the CMAJ, warned against misplacing blame on individual frontline workers during medical crises.
“Canada’s 50-year investment in developing a highly effective fleet of physicians with specialized or additional training in emergency medicine, who provide 24-hour coverage to most emergency departments across the country, could be squandered,” Varner said.
Varner referenced an aviation accident investigation to illustrate how systemic flaws should be evaluated rather than faulting individual workers publicly.
“Consider the stark contrast with the communications on, and inquiry into, the tragic collision of an Air Canada flight with a fire truck on the runway at LaGuardia Airport,” she said.
Varner noted how public inquiries handled non-medical disasters differently regarding staff anonymity.
“Yet, air traffic controllers were not publicly named, and the media were swift to acknowledge the many system-level events that precipitated this tragic occurrence,” she said.
Varner urged healthcare leaders to take direct responsibility for systemic dysfunction rather than deflecting fault onto individual workers.
“Health care system leaders must not use individuals as convenient shields to avoid taking accountability for a complex system problem,” she said.
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To address the systemic decline, the study authors called for the establishment of Emergency Care Clinical Networks, increased specialized geriatric emergency care, and expanded health staffing outside emergency departments.
