Ontario nurse calls recent patient deaths in Canada a ‘systemic failure’ of health-care system

Nurse Amie Archibald-Varley criticizes provincial leadership, saying promises to fix health care have gone unmet.

Posted 2 Jan 2026

Devon Banfield, NOW Toronto

Archibald-Varley warns healthcare delays are happening across the country, arguing that provincial governments must be held accountable, and privatization will only worsen the crisis. This comes after the recent deaths of Mandy Wood (left) and Prashant Sreekumar (right) who both died after experiencing delays in receiving medical treatment. (Courtesy: J. Wilson Allen Funeral Homes, GoFundMe)

An Ontario nurse is sounding off on the state of health-care systems across the country after a man recently died in an Edmonton emergency room, and a woman died of cancer on Christmas after waiting almost two years for a diagnosis.

Amie Archibald-Varley is an award-winning registered nurse who is popular across social media and hosts the top nursing podcast in Canada, The Gritty Nurse Podcast. She has been vocal about a recent incident in which an Edmonton man, Prashant Sreekumar, died while waiting to receive care in the Grey Nuns Community Hospital emergency room.

“It has become this very normalized situation where people are crying out in pain in the emergency department, and reassessments aren’t being done. People aren’t being checked in on,” Archibald-Varley said in an interview with Now Toronto on Friday.

Read more at NOW Toronto