A Canada-wide scarcity of children’s remedy, amid a surge of respiratory infections, has compelled some Ontario parents to head south of the border in the hunt for options.
At Meds, a pharmacy in Etobicoke, Ont., compound pharmacist Dave Hughes instructed CTV News Toronto they’re seeing a median of 5 to 20 extra sick youngsters a day.
“There’s a lineup forming most nights where people are asking questions about one medication or another,” he instructed CTV News Toronto Thursday. “There is some urgency to a lot of cases.”
Two households stated in interviews they plan to journey or had travelled to Buffalo, N.Y., in the hunt for reduction for their youngsters.
“My granddaughter had a lung infection, and the doctor said to give her Tylenol,” a lady, Savem, instructed CTV News Toronto. “She had a very dangerous headache and cough, however you don’t discover Tylenol, you don’t discover something, so this Saturday, I’m going to Buffalo.”
Evelyn, a mom who spoke to CTV News Toronto, stated they have been solely ready to discover a small quantity of toddler Tylenol in Toronto, stated they’d lately travelled to Buffalo in the hunt for remedy.
“It’s been so difficult,” she stated. “I recently went to a Shoppers but all they had was infant Tylenol and only a small amount and they wanted a prescription from a doctor to get it.”
“I decided on my own terms to go to the States, to Buffalo, and they had a few bottles left.”
She bought solely one of many bottles and drove again to Ontario, she stated.
Health Canada is blaming the scarcity of analgesics, or ache reduction remedy, on unprecedented demand, whereas many pharmacists say there’s been a provide scarcity for months.
Toronto pharmacist Amir Khela says provide has been dwindling for months.
“It’s been gone for what? Three months now?” he stated. “It’s definitely a supply problem.”
This week, federal Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos stated the scarcity of remedy was due to a rising wave of respiratory diseases.
“Demand for analgesics has soared,” Duclos stated. “We now understand really well that this is driven by the severe viruses that are impacting our children across Canada.”
Officials additionally level to the spike in youngsters admissions at hospitals. Locally, at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, emergency room wait instances are up 12 hours on common. In the hospital’s basic medication unit, occupancy charges have hit 133 per cent.
In Ottawa, CHEO, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ottawa, lately had to open a second pediatric care unit.
In the meantime, Health Canada stated producers are rising manufacturing, with some producing “at record levels.”
It stated it lately accredited the “exceptional” importation of ibuprofen from the United States, and is engaged on doing the identical for acetaminophen from Australia, to provide hospitals.
Health Canada can also be engaged on doing the identical for group pharmacies and customers, it provides, though the company didn’t present a timeline for when that may occur.
With recordsdata from CTV Atlantic’s Heidi Petracik