Good morning. Burnout since the onset of the pandemic has led to hospital staff shortages across the country, with rural communities hit the hardest. More on that below, updates to our reporting on tuberculosis, ticks and tennis. But first:
Today’s headlines
- U.S. Congress passes Trump’s signature $4.5-trillion One Big Beautiful Bill Act
- Russia hammers Kyiv in its largest missile and drone barrage since the war in Ukraine began
- Sparks from an RCMP vehicle mishap ignited a fire now threatening Lytton, B.C., stirring painful memories
The Globe tried to gather six years’ worth of ER closure statistics as part of its “Secret Canada: Your Health” projectIllustration by Romain Lasser
Secret Canada: Your Heath
The toll of Canada’s ER closure crisis
Canadians living in larger cities are familiar with the problem of emergency department overcrowding, where people waiting for beds languish on gurneys in hospital corridors – or what’s become known as “hallway medicine.”
But in small-town Canada, there is another problem, one that has been dubbed “highway medicine.”
Hi, my name is Tu Thanh Ha and since the pandemic began I have often written about issues stemming from personnel shortages in Canada’s public health care system.
Last April, a headline on the website of the Newfoundland radio station VOCM caught my attention: “‘Fortunate’ outcome despite locked emergency room in Bonavista.”
It was just a four-paragraph item. There was no name, just the tale of a man with a hand badly injured by a power saw. He went to the emergency room in the small town of Bonavista, only to find the doors locked. Fortunately for him, he found a nurse who got him transported by ambulance to another ER for surgery.
It so happens that for the past few months, I had been working with two colleagues, health reporter Kelly Grant and data editor Yang Sun, on a deep dive into the issue of hospital emergency service disruptions – night-time closures, weekend closures, shortages of doctors and nurses.
The incident in Bonavista, N.L., was a concrete example of the impact of such periodic closures. A local resident wasn’t aware on the day a chainsaw ripped through his hand that his local ER would be shuttered for 48 hours because of staffing issues.
Kelly was able to identify the man, Derrick Maloney, and interviewed him during a reporting trip to Bonavista. Maloney, and a photo of him and his bandaged hand, are featured in our in-depth feature article on ER closures.
Derrick Maloney in his home in Bonavista on April 24, 2025Johnny C.Y. Lam/The Globe and Mail
We worked for seven months on this story as part of our “Secret Canada: Your Health” series.
One of the big problems with emergency service disruptions is that there is no systematic, nationwide tracking of these incidents.
We set out to compile a dataset of ER closures since 2019, the last year before the pandemic. This meant contacting dozens of health ministries and health authorities across the country. Most told us that we would have to submit access-to-information requests, which can be slow going.
It was a painstaking process but the nature of journalism is often that long, mind-numbing work is required to shed insight into complex issues.
In the end, only New Brunswick and Manitoba were able to provide a detailed set of closure statistics. Many provinces didn’t begin tracking closures until after the pandemic started.
The data we collected show that this is almost exclusively a rural problem that touches all provinces, but particularly Manitoba, with 70 per cent of ERs having experienced closures, Nova Scotia (66 per cent), and Saskatchewan (57 per cent).
We found that rural hospitals in various provinces tried to deal in various ways with their ER staffing problems. Some never closed but advised the population that they would only treat the most urgent cases. Others would only take walk-in patients. Certain places switched to office hours, shutting down at night and during weekends.
The reality was that in many small communities, dealing with a pressing medical problem meant driving to another town because the local ER was closed – “highway medicine.”
Martine Cossette, coordinator for the Train de la Séduction committee, meets with immigrant hospital workers outside the Rivère Rouge hospital on May 7, 2025.ROGER LEMOYNE/The Globe and Mail
But we were able to conclude with a positive development.
In Rivière-Rouge, 170 kilometres northeast of Montreal, local residents rallied against the scheduled nighttime closure of their ER, went to court, got an injunction, and are now working hand-in-hand with hospital administrators to recruit and retain workers and keep medical services running.
You can read our whole story , including a visual overview of the data we collected and our methodology. You can also explore which emergency rooms in your area have closed, temporarily or permanently, with our interactive map.
Sign up for Morning Update:
Reading this online? Start your day with context and insight on the biggest stories shaping our lives, in your inbox every weekday morning.
Subscribe nowThe Shot
‘People who haven’t even seen ticks before are seeing them, and seeing many.’
Mason Tanner, left, 8, who has been diagnosed with Lyme disease following a tick bite, walks with his mother Stephanie, and sister Emily, 6, near their home in Mahone Bay, N.S. on June 11.Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail
Tick populations continue to grow in many parts of Canada, and so has the number of incidences of Lyme disease. There might not be a vaccine yet, but those on the buggy front lines are finding ways to fight back.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
Airports: Canada’s air-traffic control agency said service resumed at major airports across the country after bomb threats early Thursday led to evacuations and ground stop orders.
At home: Nunavut’s health department declared an end to years-long tuberculosis outbreaks in two Baffin Island communities.
Abroad: Ninety-four Palestinians were killed in air strikes and shootings in Gaza, including 45 people who were waiting for aid, authorities say.
Allez: In a new guideline posted in its online dictionary, Quebec’s language watchdog has said it’s acceptable to use the word “go” to cheer on sports teams.
Ah, zut: Félix Auger-Aliassime falls to Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff in second-round upset at Wimbledon.