Ottawa's hospital system is facing a stark reminder of its capacity struggles, as a local emergency room physician has written a candid letter to the Ottawa Citizen describing the rise of so-called 'chair care' as frankly demoralizing.
Chair care — the practice of treating patients in hallway chairs when no beds are available — has quietly become a fixture in Canadian emergency departments, including those serving Ottawa. Rather than being seen as a temporary workaround during peak periods, it has normalized into standard operating procedure at many hospitals.
What Is Chair Care?
Chair care happens when an emergency department is so overcrowded that patients who need medical attention are assessed, monitored, and sometimes treated while seated in waiting area or hallway chairs — not in examination rooms or on hospital beds. For patients experiencing pain, nausea, or mobility issues, the experience can be deeply uncomfortable. For the healthcare workers managing them, it adds another layer of difficulty to an already strained workflow.
The ER doctor's letter, published in Thursday's Ottawa Citizen, puts a human face on what can otherwise feel like an abstract policy problem. When physicians — people who chose medicine to help patients — find themselves demoralized by the conditions in which they're expected to work, it's a sign worth taking seriously.
A Symptom of a Bigger Problem
Chair care doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's typically a downstream consequence of hospital hallway medicine, where admitted patients waiting for a ward bed block emergency beds from being turned over for new arrivals. Ottawa's hospitals, like many across Ontario, have long grappled with bed shortages, staffing pressures, and rising patient volumes.
The pressure has compounded in recent years. Post-pandemic surges, an aging population, and ongoing challenges recruiting and retaining nursing and healthcare staff have left Ottawa's ERs operating with little margin. When capacity is routinely exceeded, hallway chairs become the safety valve.
Why It Matters for Ottawa Residents
For Ottawa residents, this isn't an abstract debate — it's what you encounter if you or a loved one ends up in a local emergency room. Being triaged into a chair rather than a bed can affect the quality of assessment, limit privacy, and make it harder for staff to monitor patients closely.
The ER doctor's letter is a call for honest conversation about where the system stands. Ottawa needs healthcare workers to feel supported and resourced — not demoralized by conditions that compromise the standard of care they trained to deliver.
Ontario's government has announced various initiatives aimed at expanding hospital capacity and improving patient flow, but frontline voices like this one suggest the gap between policy announcements and day-to-day emergency room reality remains significant.
Speaking Up Matters
Physician voices carry weight in healthcare debates, and public letters like this one help bring ER conditions into Ottawa's broader civic conversation. Advocacy from within the system — not just from patients or administrators — is often what moves the needle on systemic change.
The hope is that letters like this one prompt local health officials, hospital administrators, and provincial decision-makers to look honestly at what's happening on the ground in Ottawa emergency rooms every single day.
Source: Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, June 4, 2026. Read the original letter.
