The Patient Files: Hidden stories from inside Ontario’s hospitals
Ontario hospitals ask patients to fill out surveys as part of a legislatively mandated system that is supposed to identify problems, spur solutions and help hospitals hold themselves accountable.
But patient voices are often ignored, a groundbreaking project by the Investigative Journalism Bureau and Toronto Star has found.
We spent years fighting to make detailed patient survey data from more than 50 hospitals and health networks across Ontario public for the first time.
The surveys offer a panoramic yet unflinchingly intimate view of how Ontario hospitals sometimes harm patients with medical mistakes, long-standing capacity issues, and organizational disarray.
Patients also expressed deep gratitude for life-saving and compassionate care delivered by doctors and nurses working in an increasingly strained system.
The data pulls back the hospital curtain, revealing what patients have been telling hospital leaders for years. Take a look for yourself.
Nurses protest at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Ont. Blair Bigham/IJB
Ontario nurses protest over patient ratios in the wake of IJB investigation
Nurses took to the streets at 26 hospitals in 15 cities across Ontario days after the IJB and the Toronto Star published a story on how nurses are overburdened by unregulated patient loads.
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Ontario nurses raising alarm over high patient loads that put patients at risk, internal reports reveal
The reports are from hospitals in Niagara Health network, which said it follows staffing guidelines and is “committed to providing the best possible care.”
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Blair Bigham is part of the team of reporters who conducted an in-depth investigation into patient loads at Ontario hopsitals.
Physician/Journalist Blair Bigham reflects on Ontario nursing investigation
Following our multi-year investigation into Ontario hospitals, Physician/Journalist Blair Bigham shares a personal reflection on the challenges, revelations, and impact of this project. This is Behind the Reporting.
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He suffers debilitating side effects from a common medication. A simple test could have spared him. Why won’t Ontario and other provinces make the tests more widely available?
The U.K. aims to make pharmacogenomic tests more accessible, saying systematic testing “has the potential to transform patient’s lives.”
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Ontario hospitals asked patients about the care they received. Results were kept secret — and pleas for change went ignored
We obtained years’ worth of patient survey data from more than 50 Ontario hospitals and health networks.
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What is it like for patients at your local hospital?
To give Ontarians an inside look at the care being delivered in the province’s hospitals, we are publishing patient-survey data obtained through dozens of freedom-of-information requests.
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Behind the curtain of Ontario's hospitals
We obtained years’ worth of patient feedback from hospitals and health networks around Ontario. Here's what some patients had to say.
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