Standing outside Burnaby Hospital’s emergency room on a Tuesday night in late July, I count seventeen patients waiting outside. It’s a scene that’s become eerily familiar across British Columbia over the past year. Angela Matthews, a 64-year-old retired schoolteacher, has been here for six hours with her husband, who’s experiencing severe chest pain.
“When I was young, this would have been unthinkable,” she tells me, adjusting the makeshift cardboard fan she’s fashioned from an old magazine. “We used to be so proud of our healthcare system.”
Pride has given way to panic for many Canadians watching our healthcare infrastructure buckle under mounting pressures. The crisis that experts have been warning about for decades has arrived, and its impacts are reshaping communities across the country.
Three interconnected trends have accelerated in 2025, creating what Dr. Samantha Liu, President of the Canadian Medical Association, calls “a perfect storm in healthcare delivery.” As I’ve traveled across British Columbia and northern territories over the past eight months documenting this transformation, the human stories behind the statistics have become impossible to ignore.
The first trend is the most visible: severe healthcare worker shortages have reached critical levels. Statistics Canada’s latest healthcare workforce report reveals that Canada now faces a shortfall of approximately 34,000 nurses and 8,000 physicians, with rural areas hit hardest. The vacancy rate for registered nurses has doubled since 2022, reaching 23% nationwide.
“We’re working double shifts so frequently that it’s become normalized,” explains Jasmine Kaur, an emergency department nurse at Vancouver General Hospital. “I’ve watched twelve colleagues leave in the past year alone. Most cited burnout as the primary reason.”
The Canadian Institute for Health Information reports that healthcare worker burnout rates have increased by 43% since 2023, with nearly half of all nurses reporting symptoms of workplace PTSD. The psychological toll is particularly severe among those working in emergency services.
“We were already struggling before the pandemic,” notes Dr. Michael Chen, an emergency physician in Prince George. “COVID accelerated everything, but this crisis was decades in the making. We failed to train enough healthcare workers, failed to create supportive work environments, and now we’re seeing the consequences.”
The second trend driving this crisis is demographic: Canada’s rapidly aging population is creating unprecedented demand for healthcare services. The over-65 population has increased by 18% since 2021, according to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. In coastal and rural British Columbia communities I’ve visited, the shift is particularly pronounced.
In Powell River, I meet Elaine and Thomas Williams, both in their 80s, who’ve lived in their seaside home for four decades. Like many seniors, they’re determined to age in place, but the infrastructure to support them is crumbling.
“Our family doctor retired last year,” Elaine explains. “There’s no one taking new patients. When Thomas fell last month, we waited eleven hours in emergency. The staff were kind, but there simply weren’t enough of them.”
The aging demographic creates two simultaneous pressures: increasing demand for services while reducing the available workforce as healthcare professionals themselves retire. In Bella Coola, a remote coastal community of about 2,000 people, the sole family physician announced her retirement this spring, leaving residents facing a healthcare desert.
“We’ve advertised for eighteen months,” explains Sheila Pootlass, Health Director for the Nuxalk Nation. “The position remains unfilled. Meanwhile, our elders must travel eight hours by road—weather permitting—to reach specialist care.”
The third trend compounding this crisis is the most complex: climate change has become a direct healthcare multiplier. British Columbia has experienced three consecutive years of record-breaking heat waves, flooding, and wildfire seasons. The provincial Ministry of Health now attributes approximately 7% of all hospital admissions to climate-related illnesses or injuries, a figure that has tripled since 2021.
During last summer’s heat dome, I visited cooling centers in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where hundreds sought refuge from temperatures that reached 43°C. The community health center I visited reported a 350% increase in heat-related admissions compared to historical averages.
“We’re seeing health impacts that extend far beyond the immediate emergency,” explains Dr. Anita Reddy, an environmental health researcher at the University of British Columbia. “Heat-related complications for people with existing conditions, respiratory issues from wildfire smoke, vector-borne diseases moving northward—these all add strain to an already overtaxed system.”
The mental health impacts are equally concerning. A recent study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that people displaced by climate disasters experience rates of anxiety and depression at nearly twice the national average. For Indigenous communities with deep connections to land and traditional practices, these impacts are particularly severe.
“When the salmon don’t return, when traditional gathering areas burn, when water sources are compromised—these aren’t just environmental issues, they’re health crises,” explains William Mathias, a health coordinator with the First Nations Health Authority. “Our communities are experiencing collective trauma that manifests as physical illness.”
The convergence of these trends—workforce shortages, demographic shifts, and climate impacts—has created a healthcare landscape vastly different from what most Canadians grew up expecting. Wait times for non-emergency surgeries now average 18.3 months nationwide, according to the Fraser Institute’s latest report. One in five Canadians reports having no regular access to primary care.
Some communities are developing innovative responses. In Nanaimo, I visited a nurse practitioner-led clinic that has successfully integrated traditional Indigenous healing practices with Western medicine. In northern Quebec, a telehealth program connects remote communities with specialists hundreds of kilometers away. The federal government recently announced a $4.2 billion healthcare infrastructure investment, though many experts question whether it’s sufficient to address the scale of the crisis.
“We need to fundamentally reimagine healthcare delivery,” argues Dr. Liu. “This isn’t just about money. It’s about creating sustainable models that account for our changing demographics, climate realities, and workforce needs.”
Back at Burnaby Hospital, as midnight approaches, Angela Matthews receives word that her husband will finally see a doctor. The relief on her face is palpable, but so is the lingering concern about what comes next.
“I worry about what kind of system will be there for my grandchildren,” she says, gathering her belongings. “Healthcare was supposed to be the thing that made us Canadian. I hope we can find our way back to that promise.”
As I leave the hospital, new patients continue to arrive, their faces showing the same mixture of pain, worry, and increasingly, resignation. The healthcare crisis of 2025 didn’t arrive overnight, and it won’t be solved quickly. But understanding its root causes might be the first step toward finding a sustainable path forward.
