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The Current Transcript for November 30, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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Children’s hospitals forced to cancel surgeries amid ‘tripledemic’ surge of respiratory viruses

MG: Hi. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. I'm standing in the atrium of the hospital for Sick Children. This is the largest children's hospital in the country. And the scene here is one that's being repeated right across Canada. Children's hospitals in particular are overflowing right now. The emergency departments are very full and that has led to backups in other parts of the hospital. It's because of what people are calling a tridemick You have COVID, you have the flu and a surge in RSV. It's led to anxious parents, very sick kids and a very stressed system. And so we are here about to head into the emergency department in this hospital to see what that looks like on the ground.

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MG: Hi.

DR. JASON FISCHER: Hi. How are you?

MG: Good. I'm Matt Galloway. Hi, Jason. Dr. Jason Fischer is showing us around. He's the division head of emergency medicine at SickKids. We start chatting in the atrium, although hospital staff have started calling the space something different.

DR. JASON FISCHER: There's been some jokes that it's called the waitrium.

MG: That's ecause the sudden surge in sick children this fall has forced the hospital to transform parts of the atrium into clinic or patient care spaces.

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DR. JASON FISCHER: So in the corner, we've turned an area that was traditional cafeteria space into an actual space that's safe for waiting. So this was...

MG: No one needs to wait here today. But steps from a row of takeout eateries, a sub shop, a juice place, a sushi restaurant, temporary privacy panels rung along the outside wall of the atrium through an indoor garden. This is where some parents this fall have had to wait with their children to be seen and assessed by hospital staff.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. JASON FISCHER: You know, our emergency department was designed and built to see 65,000 patients a year. If you project out the volumes we've seen through this year, we could see up to 90,000 patients. We just don't have the physical space to either see everyone and certainly not the waiting space. And so we've tried to be as creative as we can. And this garden is one example of that, where patients can wait but also be seen by our teams when we're just full to capacity.

MG: What are the wait times today?

DR. JASON FISCHER: We've seen some stabilisation of our volumes. They've become much more seasonal. So this morning patients are being seen within an hour to two hours.

MG: That's a big change.

DR. JASON FISCHER: A week or two weeks ago, it would be four to six hours.

MG: All right. Can we go and have a look?

DR. JASON FISCHER: Yeah, for sure.

MG: Well, okay.

DR. JASON FISCHER: For sure.

MG: We had downstairs to the emergency department. SickKids is an old hospital, and Dr. Fischer isn't kidding. Its E.R. waiting room is tiny before COVID. You'd be lucky to squeeze 30 people into the mismatched chairs. These days, maybe half that number would fit in between the physical distancing barriers they still have in place. On the late November day we visit, though, the hospital emergency department is quiet. The waiting room is empty. Although anxious parents and young patients linger along corridors, the cries of tired, irritated infants echo down the hallways. But the scene is much more calm than chaotic. Dr. Fischer says it's a far cry from what the emergency department has looked like for most of this fall.

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MG: People talk about, you know, capacity numbers. What is the capacity? What do you what do you operating at now?

DR. JASON FISCHER: I would say now we're effectively working at kind of 100%. Up until this week, we would be at 120, 130%. And with some staff shortages, there has been days where our ratios of doctors to nurses to patients has even exceeded that.

MG: That doesn't sound ideal. To put it mildly, the whole idea of capacity is that you have some wiggle room, that something could happen and you have space to grow.

DR. JASON FISCHER: Well, I think that's a really important point that we recognised in 2019, that in paediatric health care we had a very narrow margin. Not a lot of slack in the system and I think we're seeing that now with this surge.

MG: A large video screen hangs on the wall listing current wait times. It's 41 minutes today. There's also a large graphic, like a car speedometer. It's shaded blue on the left and red on the right. And during our visit, the needle stays safely in the blue. It's a good day. But that has been unusual lately.

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NURSE: Do you have fever, cough, any vomiting or diarrhoea?

MG: How often were you right in the red?

DR. JASON FISCHER: You know, through October and November it was steadily in the red. And we talked about whether or not we needed some other kind of graphic to show when when things were becoming unsafe.

MG: What sort of stress does that create for these folks here in this triage department?

DR. JASON FISCHER: These nurses are really the best of the best in assessing what children need to be seen first. They're also the brunt of a lot of this frustration. You can see for the first time really in our history, we've had to add a security guard right at triage.

MG: Because?

DR. JASON FISCHER: Because of the degree of incivility and the degree of frustration. And I should say that's not unique to our emergency department. Emergency departments are facing that across the city. But there is something I think really sad about that coming to a children's hospital.

[Sound: Child crying]

MG: Dr. Fisher leads me down a hallway. There are glassed in treatment areas on each side, and kids sit or lay on the beds inside many of them.

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DR. JASON FISCHER: So this is this is our more acute area. We divide it into a west side and an east side. And this is where the sickest patients come in.

MG: And the kids who would need to come in here in this current surge, what would they be exhibiting?

DR. JASON FISCHER: So we're seeing a lot of respiratory viruses. So a lot of issues with not just like cough and cold, but breathing difficulties. And typically, patients that are that we deem that need to stay into the hospital would wait down here for maybe two or three hours while a bed is ready through September, October, November. Often they were waiting nine or 10 hours just because we had so much capacity upstairs. That's great. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you, guys. We appreciate you.

MG: Upstairs is where sick kids PICU. Paediatric intensive care unit is and that is where we're headed next.

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MG: Hi, I'm Matt. Hi, Steve. Nice to meet you. Thanks for tonight.

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: I'm Dr. Steve Schwartz. I'm the chief of the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children.

MG: We're standing in a hallway on the other side of two swinging doors. Doctors and nurses move past us. One pushes a small boy asleep on a hospital bed. On our right are units where children are receiving critical care, with parents perched in the chairs beside them. And next to the doorways are shelves filled with medical supplies and tiny diapers.

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MG: How would you describe what the last few weeks have been like in this hospital?

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: I'm really trying to avoid using the word unprecedented anymore because it seems to have been the word of the last three years in health care. But that is what it's been. We always see more kids with viral respiratory illnesses in the winter than in the summer, and that's normal. This is exceptional. I've been doing this for a long time. I have never seen anything like this in terms of just the vast numbers of patients. And it's not just here. It's across the province, it's across the country. It's across North America.

MG: You're reluctant to use that word unprecedented. But that's a word that your colleagues will use, that.

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: It's the right word. It's just a word I wish I didn't have to use anymore.

MG: What does that look like in here?

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: It has looked like scrambling to find the beds to move kids into when they're not here to kids or if they're waiting in the emergency department.

MG: And so when they when those kids are admitted into this unit with that critical level of care, what are the symptoms that they are displaying?

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: Quite simply, they can't breathe. The standard story, which is babies at home, has some cold symptoms for a day or two, starts to have more trouble breathing. The parents notice that they're using more muscles on their chest. You know, there's the stomach kind of moves in and out when they breathe. Sometimes their colour doesn't look right anymore. They bring them to a local emergency room. The you know, the doctors there in the emergency room immediately, you know, recognise that this baby needs help to breathe. They're often able to- they certainly can give oxygen. Sometimes they can give other support. And then they call the the provincial, you know, one number to call, number to find an ICU bed they call our physician. And then we sort of if we don't have a bed available, we try to scramble to to make one, which means I mean, a bed isn't just a bed. A bed is also a nurse. Probably, most importantly, a bed is a nurse.

MG: Would you say we have to create a bed and you're operating in 120% capacity. How do you go about doing that? I mean, that that 120% capacity by definition means that that there's no capacity there, isn't it.

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: Yeah. And that well that's why, you know, that's why we had to make the, the very difficult decision to stop doing things like the, the term is elective surgery, but it's not really elective. The example I use is, yeah, there aren't any kids around where you say, What would you like to do today? Would you like to go to Canada's Wonderland or have surgery? And they're choosing surgery. You know, they're necessary operations. So things that kids need, but if they don't get them today, they won't die. Whereas if the kids that we're talking about don't get the care today, they will die. And that's the stark reality of it. So to be totally honest, I don't do anything to make a bed. I tell our charge nurses that we need a bed and they do all the magic.

LAURIE HAMILTON: Where will we place them, the biggest beds spotted, the best beds spot what we have right now for...

MG: Dr. Schwartz takes me over to meet one of those magic makers, Laurie Hamilton, a charge nurse. She's the person who gets the call when the ICU needs to create another bed. And those calls are coming pretty frequently these days. Next to Laurie is a handwritten board that shows the number of paediatric ICU beds available in the province. On the day we're here, one hospital has none, another has minus one. Sick kids has negative eight beds available.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: How, when this unit is operating at 120% capacity, do you create a bed?

LAURIE HAMILTON: We do it in different ways. We look at the assignments that nurses currently have and the allocation of the patients within the units. Like if we had two lesser acute patients in two different areas of the unit, is there a way to put them together to have one nurse safely take care of those two patients? We will speak with our cardiac colleagues to see if they have any nurses that can help us. We speak with hospital administrators to see if there's any nurses anywhere else in the building. And we work with our colleagues to see if there's a way that we can work with a model where the RTC step in and you do more patient care than they normally do.

MG: Hearts being respiratory therapists?

LAURIE HAMILTON: That's correct. Yep.

MG: Can you give me an example on a day like today how that would unfold?

LAURIE HAMILTON: Well, I mean, I can give you a prime example. This morning before noon, we had three calls from outside hospitals of patients requiring to come to this building. We had an OR that was booked to come to us. We also had a patient from within the building that needed to come. And we knew all of this before noon today. So for the unplanned admissions, therefore, that we didn't know that we were getting. I was able to reassign some of the nurses within the units to cover off some of those patients. And I was able to work with our cardiac colleagues in order to free up nurses to bring the other patients into the building safely.

MG: How has that process changed over the last few weeks with the surge that we're seeing in children's hospitals across the country and across much of North America?

LAURIE HAMILTON: I think we're just pushed to stretch what we're doing a lot more and be much more creative with how we're allocating staff and allocating the patients in the unit. We are, you know, asking nurses to do more than they ever have before.

MG: How would you describe the level of stress that you have operated under over the last couple of weeks?

LAURIE HAMILTON: Very high for the last few weeks. Very high. I mean, we've been running on a higher level of stress for the last many months, but it's really ratcheted up in the last few weeks.

MG: Dr. Schwartz agrees.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. STEVE SCHWARTZ: We were always a system that had vulnerabilities. This has unmasked every vulnerability that we've always had.

MG: What do you mean?

What I mean is that the medical system as a whole, certainly paediatric critical care has always operated at a very high capacity. And the moral distress comes from the idea that some child who needs us isn't going to get here. You know, they could have gotten here under different circumstances, but we weren't able to make the bed fast enough or we weren't able to make it at all. And there wasn't any place else that could take them either. And the thought that, you know, a child would die or suffer, you know, horrible harm and everything that goes along with that is heartbreaking. For a lot of the kids that we're seeing in this particular respiratory situation, the vast majority of these kids are otherwise healthy kids. They were not kids who had medical problems going in. And I think that for a lot of families, first of all, that's really difficult. Right? You have a healthy child you can't believe like, like most people don't even know a place like this exists and they don't know like machines like this exists to help kids breathe or to help their hearts. And that's pretty shocking for a lot of families. Many kids will get better and they'll go on to do very well. But when you get that sick, not everybody gets better. I mean, some people die. But even if you don't, you may have a longer term injury to your lungs or to other organs. And, you know, those are harder situations because now you're adjusting. You had a healthy child and now you have a child who's going to have chronic medical needs.

MG: Thanks again. Thank you very much.

MG: I say goodbye and head off to my final stop, SickKids surgical.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: ESo each one of you have bunny suit overtop your probably best to take your other jackets off. Zipper up the front.

MG: Which entails donning what they call the bunny suit. Big white boxy. It's a full body medical scrub set along with blue shoe covers and a red hairnet.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. SIMON KELLEY: You sit and watch people. See what she did you see what she did here?

VOICE: That's right. You put your regular shoes back on and then they just get you covered over them.

MG: That's Dr. Simon Kelley, who has managed to get into his own bunny suit before I could barely get mine unzipped.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. SIMON KELLEY: I'm the associate chief of Perioperative Services here at SickKids. That means I'm involved in the logistics of how the operating room works. And right now we're at the front desk of the operating room and we're standing just by our electronic boards that list all the surgeries that are being done, there. Three large screens. One tends to be for emergency procedures that we do, and the other two screens are for more scheduled surgeries.

MG: So how busy is it today?

DR. SIMON KELLEY: Well, it's a lot quieter than it normally is because of the surgical ramp down. So we're running around 60% of our usual capacity. And so we have 16 operating rooms, but at the moment we're only running ten each day. So that means six of our operating rooms are completely empty, no surgeries being done in those.

MG: How is that managed in terms of deciding to close down how many you're going to close down, but also who can be deferred, whose surgery can be pushed back?

DR. SIMON KELLEY: Well, these are quite complex decisions. And the first thing we needed to understand was how many of our staff would be redeployed to critical care. We then actually have a ramp down plan that we previously built to understand what level of capacity we could then run the operating room. So from that, we were able to work out based on those redeployments that we'd have to drop activity by 40%. Now, how do we decide what we do? We pretty much have to clean the slate because when you're only running at 60% capacity, we can only do the most urgent surgeries. And so that takes then a big team effort. So we've taken all of the ten surgical divisions here at SickKids and asked them to get together and prioritise every surgery they have coming up in the in the next few weeks. We have an operation room leadership team that then really has to triage all of those cases and try and identify which cases absolutely have to be done right now and which surgeries can be deferred.

MG: So there's these three boards here. Normally with the boards be full, all three of these boards before.

DR. SIMON KELLEY: Absolutely.

MG: So this one here is blank. It's there's nothing on at all.

DR. SIMON KELLEY: Yeah, that's completely empty. And that speaks very clearly to the to the reduction in operative capacity that we have right now. So all three boards would be full top to bottom of surgeries that are being done throughout the complex all day, every day. And as you can see, they're sort of half to two thirds full right now. Again, consistent with the drop in surgeries that we've had to move to. You know, as I show you around the complex here, you'll see empty operating rooms. And normally these would be a hive of activity every day of the week. You have busy teams doing, you know, complicated surgeries and innovative surgeries and necessary surgeries. And and they're just not happening right now.

MG: We walk through the surgical hallway on each side or operating rooms, and in a couple you can glimpse surgeries happening inside a patient on a bed with doctors surrounding it. Others, like the one we end up in, are deserted.

DR. SIMON KELLEY: There's three main problems with the delays in children's surgery. The first is a lot of our surgeries are timed to hit developmental milestones that they're aimed very specifically to to help a child grow and develop. And if you miss those milestones, you miss those developmental stages, you can't turn the clock back. And that's a really problematic thing within children's surgeries. Another thing that happens is many of the conditions we treat actually get worse with time. They get worse over time with growth and development. And that means by the time we get to a surgery that's been delayed, we may be dealing with a much more complicated situation that requires a much more complicated surgery and then the risks of that surgery start to increase. So that's the thing that really concerns us, is that the risk to the child increases because the procedures become more complicated.

MG: What's the knock on effect going to be of the fact that, again, these boards aren't full, that that you have six operating rooms on a day like today that aren't in use right now?

DR. SIMON KELLEY: Well, that's also a great challenge, because our surgical waitlist is increasing to the extent that we now have over 6000 children on our waitlist waiting for surgeries. And the challenge is when we have a ramp down, when we get back to normal activity, we have limited ability to go over and above that, to go over and above 100%, to then dig into that backlog and actually bring the waitlist down. And that's the challenge we've had certainly over the whole of the last two and a half years. And it's certainly going to be the challenge that we face next year. Once eventually this this current flu crisis settles, that will then be our great challenge. How do we get that waitlist down? And and what really happens is we develop what we've termed really a two tier waitlist system. And that means, of course, going forward, we will still have emergency surgeries, we will still have urgent surgeries to take care of, and they will still take precedence. But what happens is those children that don't have urgent surgeries, they will languish on our waitlist. And there are thousands of those children who are waiting longer and longer.

MG: I just wonder what sort of toll that takes on people who are having to make those choices?

DR. SIMON KELLEY: Well, I think that's a real challenge and not to diminish in any way the pain and anxiety and worry of the families who surgeries have been cancelled. There's a huge element of moral distress in our team-mates as well, the surgeons and the nurses and the anaesthetists, because, you know, we know what we need to do, but we're just unable to because of the resource limitations at the moment. And there is a there is a toll on the health care workers. They're very concerned about the current situation. And the parents are heartbroken because there's nothing more important than the health of your child. And and many of these children who we've had to postpone their surgeries right now, they've been waiting for surgery, some of them, for a year or more. And then to suddenly find that we're unable to proceed with the operation that had been planned, it's very devastating for them. And we try and support them the best we can. But it's it's a very tough situation to take when that child isn't getting the care that they need and that they deserve.

MG: The wait times and patient capacity are getting better at the hospital's front end in the emergency department. But that is partially because nurses are being redeployed from back here in the surgical unit. Dr. Kelley says those moves were necessary, but he still worries about the long term consequences.

SOUNDCLIP

DR. SIMON KELLEY: The question is, well, how long does the flu crisis go on for? It may well be. And normally we have a of, you know, flu issues in January and February. So we could be looking at a situation exactly like this, running right through to the springtime. And that's our biggest fear that it could take many months before we get back to our full operating capacity. And by that time, the waitlist has increased even further and it makes it even more difficult to get through that backlog.

MG: That's great. Thank you very much.

DR. SIMON KELLEY: You too.

MG: Yeah.

Dr. Simon Kelley is the associate chief of perioperative services at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. We were speaking in an empty operating room. The CBC News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

It's scary to think that your child's medical care might be getting pushed back and pushed back, especially when you've been waiting for so many months and working up to that date and then finally having it pushed back. It feels like your entire life in that moment is getting put on hold yet again.

MG: Lives put on hold. Critical care delayed. In six minutes. We continue our look at paediatric care in Canada and hear what it's like to learn that your child's surgery has been cancelled. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

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Children’s hospitals forced to cancel surgeries amid ‘tripledemic’ surge of respiratory viruses – Pt. 2

Guests: Rachel Armstrong, Alex Hunter

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, Alberta Premier Daniel Smith wants a bigger voice for her province. Critics worry, though, about the new Alberta Sovereignty Act's impact on democracy. That's coming up in just under 30 minutes. Also, the pressure of an entire nation on the shoulders of Lionel Messi as he laces up for today's World Cup game for Argentina. But first, young patients, their families and the stresses in paediatric health care.

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MG: Before the news, we heard about surgery cancellations at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children and what people are calling a crisis in paediatric care. You see it in the emergency department, in the operating room and in the ICU. It's an issue right across this country in British Columbia. Dozens of paediatric surgeries have been cancelled. Rachel Armstrong is waiting for surgery for her son, Jackson, born with holes in his heart. He has already had ten operations. Earlier this year, they were told that Jackson would need surgery number 11, a procedure that has already been pushed back twice. Rachel lives in Kamloops, British Columbia. Rachel, good morning.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Hi. Thanks for having me here. Thanks for being here.

MG: Tell me about about Jackson.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: So Jackson. Yeah, he's quite the character, really. He he's full of life. He's really smart, really funny. You know, he was born with holes in his heart. So this has kind of been something that we've been facing his entire life. But he's a strong little fella, that's for sure.

MG: How old is he?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: He just turned nine on Saturday.

MG: And so he's had ten surgeries, as I mentioned already. What is the 11th surgery? What is the surgery that he needs?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: He needs to have his aorta replaced with a mechanical valve. He has a severe obstruction in his aorta that they've been monitoring and watching for a couple of years now. So it's finally time to kind of intervene. And yeah, he's going to have it replaced with a mechanical valve.

MG: And so one of the things we heard when we were at the hospital and speaking with surgeons is these are kids. And you mean there aren't elective surgeries for kids? All of these surgeries are necessary. How important is this surgery for Jackson in terms of everything that's going on in his life right now.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: The obstruction in his heart, it's classified as severe. So at some point, you know, he will no longer if he doesn't have it replaced, at some point, it's it's going to give out and it's going to cause, you know, an emergency situation here. As of right now, he is classified as stable, though at least if it does get delayed a couple more months, he's probably going to be okay. But it's something that should have happened, you know, earlier this year. So it's been quite the waiting game. And we've actually been cancelled on twice now. And, you know, we had a couple of tentative dates booked before those were scheduled as well. So it's been a little bit of a Gong Show, to say the least.

MG: A little bit of a Gong Show.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Yeah. Yeah.

MG: Where do you have to go to have the surgery?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Well, we live in Kamloops and our children's hospital is in Vancouver, but we have to go down. You know, it's even just for his surgery. We have to go down usually two or three days in advance and just to do everything to prepare for his surgery. So it takes a lot of planning and it's usually it's quite a big event.

MG: And so the surgery, one of the surgeries was scheduled in October. And then what happened?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: He was scheduled for October 12th and we went down on the 10th and we spent all day and clinic down there, pre-surgery clinic. And at the end of our day, we spent eight hours in clinic. They told us to we had to go home because we were cancelled. So they rescheduled for November. And then same thing happened in November. We we were on our way down to the hospital. And as we were headed there, they called us and told us we were cancelled on again for a second time.

MG: Why did they say that the surgeries were cancelled?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: There is not enough nurses in the ICU to be able to take care of all of the children that are being admitted to to the respiratory illnesses going around, as well as take care of those kiddos coming out of surgery. So I'm pretty sure are days that they're allowed to have surgery went from four down to three because they're actually making space for more respiratory admissions. So it's kind of just, you know, been this ripple effect that's created this massive backlog where children just keep getting bumped and bumped and bumped. And I know that these elective surgeries that are booked are happening fewer and fewer as the weeks go on.

MG: What was your reaction when they said having gone down there, but also gone through, you know, the prep and you're in clinic and there's an emotional component to it as well. And they said, we're going to have to push this back.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: My reaction was not very good. I was I was my stress was through the roof. I was vibrating. I was like visibly shaking. I thought I was going to pass out hyperventilating like it was for the second time. Yeah, I know it was, but it was not. It was not a good time, that's for sure.

MG: Can you tell me about that reaction? I mean, why why do you think you reacted in that way?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Well, as a parent, it's it's scary to think that your child's medical care might be getting pushed back and pushed back, especially when you've been waiting for so many months and working up to that date. And then finally, you know, all of that work that you put in for that date, which is a lot to schedule everything around being able to go there and then having it pushed back. It feels like your entire life in that moment is getting. Put on hold yet again.

MG: I mean, there are also, as I said, there's an emotional part to this as a parent, I mean, to get yourself ready to see your child go into surgery has to be, has to be really quite something.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: To hand your child over to the surgeon, it's very scary and to be quite honest, it starts way before you even show up for surgery. As soon as, you know, as a mother who's my child has obviously had many surgeries, that anxiety starts the moment that we hear he needs to go back for surgery. And for all of that time that you wait until he's in that [operating room] and has come out, you kind of have that thought in the back of your mind, you know, what's going to happen to him in there? Is he going to come out okay like that? That anxiety lingers until he is out. And you've been told by the surgeon that said everything went well, but you always have that thought in your mind, what if it doesn't? And that's something that you have to live with until they come out of the operating room.

MG: You said it was a Gong Show. And when we when we were at the hospital, it was interesting because we spoke with surgeons and they talked about having to tell parents that, yes, that these surgeries are being delayed and hoping that the parents would understand. Why did you use that phrase, a Gong Show?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: You know, I really you're right about that. I really feel bad for you know, we've got a couple of cardiac surgeons here in B.C. who are really amazing. And as of right now, like, they're doing very few surgeries. And I feel terrible for them because day after day after day, they're having to have that conversation, the same one that they've had with me a couple of times now with all of these families and having to tell them over and over again that they're getting delayed. And, you know, the reaction from the parents, I'm sure, is very similar to mine was, you know, a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. And for the surgeons themselves that they should be in the operating room doing what they're supposed to be doing, not acting as social workers, having to have those conversations over and over and over again. It's pretty sad.

MG: He felt angry about it.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was very angry.

MG: Is there a part of you that understands that process? I mean, that that because of what's going on now across the country with COVID and flu and RSV and that they have to move nurses out of the recovery areas down to the paediatric ICU, that they have to make those tough choices. Is there a part of you that understands that?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, when the first time when it happened, at first our initial reaction was anger. But, you know, when we at home, we kind of thought about it and we're like, you know, he's stable for now. There are children out there that need that space, need that care. So we just need to accept that and know that it probably needed a little bit more than we do. So yeah, we definitely understand, but we've been kind of waiting since May for the surgery and to get pushed along so many times. That's really where the frustration really comes in.

MG: What does that mean for life on a practical level? Because it's a trip down there, it's its time away. There's all sorts of things that have to factor into this.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: It's a lot to plan for me. I'm the manager of a store, so the amount of stress that I face on a daily basis just going to work is a lot. But being able to figure out a way to plan for me to be gone and for my business to still thrive while I'm gone. There's so much planning that goes into that. Even just doing it once, let alone having to do it over and over and over again. And there's so much work that goes into it. But not only that Jackson has day-care that he goes to and I have to enrol him for the couple of weeks that, you know, we plan to have surgery and then things change and the space has been potentially given away to somebody else. And it's so many moving parts, really.

MG: How's he doing? I mean, just when all of this is happening, how does he interpret and kind of take that in?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: He's pretty good about it. I think he's more so relieved more than anything because he just doesn't want to go in. But his reaction is pretty good.

MG: When is the surgery scheduled? For now.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: I was scheduled for December the 14th, so we will head back down probably in about a week or so and hopefully things follow through with the state. I kind of holding my breath on that, though. I feel like there's a good chance that we could get pushed again.

MG: Do you think that you might be pushed again?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Possibly, yeah. I mean, if this has been going on for a couple of months now within the hospital where, you know, children are keep getting bumped and bumped and bumped, you know, that problem hasn't been fixed overnight. So I think there's a really good chance that we could get bumped again.

MG: I know that you've been writing letters and getting in touch with people, politicians and folks at the hospital board and what have you. In part, what do you want them to do? But what also do you want them to know about the situation that you're in right now?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: There's so many things I would like to see happen, really. I really think that our province I mean, I'm here in B.C. and I feel like there's a lot that our new premier could probably do to help fund this situation and figure out a way to kind of get past it. And I'm just really curious to see what he's going to do.

MG: Do you think that those who are in charge understand, again, they're having to make these decisions and choices, but do they understand the situation that you and your family find themselves in?

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: I think that they look at the picture as a whole and not individually each case to really realise the impact on every single family that this impacts. It's quite a lot. Like you said, I've I've reached out to so many different people just. Our story heard, and I've hardly heard back anything. And it just makes me feel like nobody's really listening and they don't really care about the actual lives attached to these stories.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you about this. This is really tough. And so I wish you the best of luck.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Absolutely.

MG: And I hope that the surgery goes well and goes ahead in December. Rachel, thanks so much. Thank you, ma'am. Take care of yourself, Abi.

RACHEL ARMSTRONG: Okay.

MG: Rachel Armstrong lives in Kamloops, British Columbia. We did reach out to the BC Children's Hospital for comment, but we did not hear back. Alex Munter is seeing the heartache caused by the paediatric crisis up close as head of one of Ontario's hardest hit hospitals. He's president and CEO of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario. It's in Ottawa. It's also known as Chicco. Alex, good morning.

ALEX HUNTER: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What goes through your mind when you hear what Rachel Armstrong and her son Jackson have been through? Well.

ALEX HUNTER: I mean, it's heartbreaking. I mean, Matt, you're a parent. You know that there is just nothing worse than watching your child suffer than worrying for your your child's well-being. And, you know, we've had many of those conversations here. And and it's the you know, I would say the moral distress in our organisations, children's hospitals across the country is very, very great. People are mobilising. We are responding. This is this this surge of of respiratory viral disease in our communities, you know, is unprecedented. People have been at GEO for 20, 30, 40 years. We've never seen anything at this scale for this length of time. And we have, you know, an undersized system going into the pandemic. And and and and so it's just yeah, it's heartbreaking to hear these stories. And we're all in these conversations every day with family.

MG: What does that look like in your hospital? I mean, I saw this at SickKids in terms of an ICU. That is it is, you know, operating 120% capacity surgeries aren't happening. You tweeted about a two day period at Children's earlier this month when seven kids had to be resuscitated by staff in the E.R.

ALEX HUNTER: We had there been twice as many resuscitations in November of this year, as of November of of last year. And, you know, in for heart, heart, brain and spinal surgeries in particular that require an ICU admission. So the like the story we just heard when your ICU beds are all full or in our case, all full, and we've opened up pop up ICU and we have some babies that have viral infections in our nick as well. You just don't have a bed. So if there's a planned surgery, you know, there's no such thing as an elective surgery. These are all medically necessary. The only thing that's elective is the scheduling. Those those have to be cancelled. So, you know, urgent and emergent surgeries are going ahead, but scheduled surgeries are being cancelled because there just are no beds. There are no nurses. I was you know, we're at. We're at 180% occupancy this morning in our in our paediatric intensive care unit. And and and so, it's all hands on deck to respond to today's emergency.

MG: But it's not just today's emergency. I mean, you know.

ALEX HUNTER: Tomorrow tomorrow's emergency. So it is you know, I think what I once heard that Isobel McKenzie, who's the B.C. Seniors Advocate, talk about what happened in long term care at the beginning of the pandemic and said, well, nobody who knew long term care was surprised, but everybody else tuning in was shocked. And I think it's a bit the same here. We we've experienced this before, but really for a few weeks. And never at this scale. So this is the equivalent of what we might experience for two, three, four weeks in a very busy viral season in January, going on for months and months and months at a much accentuated level.

MG: How do how did we get to this point, though? I mean, you've said that even before this current crisis, the children's health system in this country was too small to meet the demand. So, I mean, just briefly, how did we get to this point?

ALEX HUNTER: Well, very briefly and you know, she is a good example of that. We have about half as many beds as when we opened in 1974. And that's mostly a good news story because through the seventies, eighties and nineties, you know, advances in surgical technique, pharmacology, advances that helped children avoid hospitalisations public health, vaccination, measles, chickenpox, the helmet laws. So better prenatal care were for women, healthier babies. So all kinds of great reasons why we needed fewer beds. But then, you know over the last 20 years, we've seen a prevalence increase in many illnesses and disorders. We've had population growth here in Ottawa nine times the Ontario average, but we had the same number of beds going into the pandemic as we had 20 years earlier. And it just it's not enough. And prior to the pandemic, 35% of kids here in in Ottawa and area waited longer than is clinically, say, for surgery. That's gone up to 50% earlier this year. And, you know, as a result of this surge, that's going to that's going to go up even even further. And not just surgery, but but diagnostic procedures, specialist appointment. I was at the hospital late last night just doing doing rounds just to see how folks were doing. We had a cardiologist on the on on our pop up medicine unit taking care of a viral you know, a viral illness. We had a neurologist and in the emergency department, we had nurses from outpatient clinics on the inpatient unit. So that there, you know, we are doing what we need to do to take care of the kids coming through the door. But to do that, we're shutting down clinics and cancelling surgery. And so we will have a big you know, I we will get through this surge. I'm more concerned about what happens after. And when you do my kind of job, you need to look you need to find optimism. You need to see what the future could look like. And I think I'm hopeful that that, you know, you and I are having this conversation. There's a lot of attention to this issue right now. And so my hope is that the silver lining for all of this is that we finally have eyes on the fact that we have a growing children's population in this country and we don't have the resources in the child health system to respond in a timely way.

MG: I've heard that the argument made that in some ways, as hospitals look to to shrink their budgets and whether that's government funding or whether that's hospitals try to figure out, you know, how to spend the money that they get from those governments, that children's care has been sacrificed in that effort. Is that fair to say?

ALEX HUNTER: Well, I mean, here in Ontario, about five, six years ago, that's what literally was happening. We were we were our you know, our budgets were being cut and redistributed to the adult hospitals. And there's so few of us and so many of them that they didn't notice marginal benefit for them, but significant impact on, on us. I, I do think that there overall the system was undersized. So in Ontario, for example, going into the pandemic in 2019, the Ontario Hospital Association issued a report that showed that Ontario had the lowest ratio per capita of acute care hospital beds in the Western world, Ontario, in Mexico and in last place. Now, there's been significant increases in capacity since then, so I don't know if that that's still the case, but we went in very thin and within that really undersized system overall, we had a particularly undersized children's system. And I would say it matters more here in Ontario as an example and most parts of Canada, but certainly here in Ontario, in most parts of Ontario, for most types of care, kids will wait longer than adults now. And that really matters because if a if a child can't get dental surgery, that might affect their language acquisition. If they can't get developmental therapy, that will affect their development, their education. If they can't get a sleep study for 18 months or 24 months and they can't sleep, that affects their schooling, their family. So. we're talking about not just somebody who is in in pain and suffering. It is a child that should be enough to mobilise us. But we are we're talking about. The entire trajectory of their lives that can be affected. And so that's why we feel such an enormous sense of urgency about this and where, you know, I can I can speak for others in the children's health sector. I know when we say we're glad there's eyes on it.

MG: That's the number nine, aside from the eyes is in the remaining couple of minutes that we have what has to be done. You use the phrase right size the system. There's an immediate crisis and you say you can get through this crisis. But to make sure that this changes, that this teachable moment is seised upon what has to be done for the long term.

ALEX HUNTER: So as a principle, we need to say it's just not okay for kids to be waiting longer than adults. And so that means at both federal and provincial levels, we need to ensure that the resources are there and prioritized for kids health-care services across the continuum, in hospital, but also outside of hospital. Here in Ontario, the Children's Health Coalition has put together a plan on how to catch up on on backlog so we can work with government to to implement that. And we're seeing, you know, we're seeing some of some of it being put into effect. So here at Yale, for example, and at other children's hospitals in Ontario, we have seen in the last week the government has announced a rightsizing of our critical care capacity. That happened last year when we had the surge in eating disorders. There was investment to right size our our eating disorder programmes across the province. So let's get ahead of this now. Let's in a thoughtful way make the investments that we need to make to make sure that kids get the care they need when they need it.

MG: Are you confident, having seen what you've seen, that we will see we as a country will seise upon this opportunity so that you won't be operating at what did you say, 180% capacity with a pop up critical care unit in the future?

ALEX HUNTER: Yeah. So so am I confident? Well, that's interesting question. I'm certainly more hopeful than I than I've been in a long time. I can send you articles that I've written, talks that I've given on this for going back years and years and years. And, you know, I feel that the folks are finally turning in. So I certainly feel more hopeful and more confident that people are listening. And, you know, we will work with with with all levels of government to figure out practical solutions. Kids deserve no less.

MG: In the meantime, though, you hear those parents like Rachel and she's vibrating because her child who needs this surgery has been pushed off twice now.

ALEX HUNTER: Yeah, of course she is. I mean, it's not okay. Like, there's no there's no version of this that is acceptable.

MG: I'm glad to give this a good bit of time to talk about and glad to have you on the programme.

ALEX HUNTER: Thank you for doing that. Thank you for doing that.

MG: Thanks so much. Alex Munter is president and CEO of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Cheo. That is in Ottawa. We'd love to hear from you. We know that this is a crisis in paediatric care that is happening right across this country. And so how have you experienced that? Are you a family parents caregiver who has seen that backup in the emergency department, for example, waiting for a long time to be seen? Perhaps you've seen that in the surgery department of the hospital where surgeries like the one for Rachel son have been pushed back. Maybe it's in the ICU. Maybe you work in the health care system as a doctor, a nurse, a nurse practitioner. How has this crisis in paediatric care impacted you? You can get in touch. Email us at the current at CBC dot c a. Well, coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

When you have the power to reset the relationship with all of us. That's what this is all about. I hope that we've sent a message to Ottawa that we will vigorously defend our constitutional areas of jurisdiction and they should just borrow.

MG: Plain language their from the new Premier of Alberta, a new relationship with Ottawa and a host of new powers for Alberta MLAs. What Danielle Smith's Sovereignty Act could mean for democracy in her province and beyond. That's coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stick around.

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Constitutional concerns over Alberta’s sovereignty act; and why soccer great Lionel Messi once faced backlash in his native Argentina

Guests: Lisa Young, Jasmine Garsd

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 2: We've been ignored for ten years. The well, the former premier Rachel Notley tried the climate leadership plan to get a better relationship with Ottawa. It failed. Former Premier Jason Kenney tried to have a collaborative relationship with Steven Guilbeault in Quebec to get LNG export. It failed. We put forward an equalisation referendum to try to start a conversation to change the relationship with Ottawa. It failed. So now we're gonna try something new. I think we've got their attention.

MG: That's Alberta's premier, Danielle Smith, yesterday after announcing the Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada act. The province's sovereignty was a cornerstone of Danielle Smith's bid to lead the United Conservative Party. And now that the act has been introduced, there are many questions on what it actually will accomplish, both for the province and for Smith's future as premier. Lisa Young is a political science professor at the University of Calgary. Lisa, good morning. Good morning. There was an earthquake in Alberta yesterday. Perhaps no coincidence given what the Premier.

LISA YOUNG: And it coincided with the act being introduced.

MG: I'm sure it was all happenstance. Yes. What do you make of of of the act as it has been presented? Is it what she promised?

LISA YOUNG: Well, you know, it's really interesting. I think most of us were expecting a watered down version of what she had talked about during the leadership campaign. And what was actually introduced yesterday is watered down in one respect. It doesn't say that it's going to reject Canadian court rulings, but there was a surprise it added powers that nobody had expected to see in this act. So what it essentially does is to say that if the provincial legislature votes to give an opinion that some piece of federal legislation or some federal action is unconstitutional, then the Alberta cabinet gets extraordinary emergency powers to rewrite legislation and take other actions without going back to the legislature in order to remedy the situation. So it's you know, this really is quite an extraordinary piece of legislation and not something that any of us saw coming.

MG: So provincial entities like police and school boards, health officials, could be directed by cabinet not to enforce federal laws.

LISA YOUNG: That's exactly right. And there's a very broad definition of these provincial entities. So it's everybody who you just listed, plus post-secondary institutions and even organisations that receive provincial government funding. So non-profits, conceivably.

MG: What would they be looking for? I mean, she said that the cabinet should be looking at four federal intrusions. What exactly is she talking about there?

LISA YOUNG: Well, that's an interesting question. And, you know, how how deep ministers are going to go is going to be interesting to see. I think that the the intrusions and I'm I'm using that in quotation marks that are of the most concern to the Smith government and I think to too many in Alberta are greenhouse gas emissions regulations and other measures relating to the oil and gas sector here. You know, yesterday we saw Smith talk about when she was asked to justify why she needed these new emergency powers. Her answer was, well, there are federal intrusions that are going to devastate the oil and gas industry. So I think that's at the heart of it. But what she's done is to say to her ministers, go looking for anything that you would call a federal intrusion, including funding with strings attached. So, for example, the child care agreement.

MG: And that if they were to find that to be an intrusion, then she could, through Cabinet, direct those entities to to ignore those federal laws. Is that at all constitutional?

LISA YOUNG: I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but my understanding is that this is not and there are a couple of reasons that we should be worried about the constitutionality of it. The first is that it sets the legislature up to act like a court. So it gives the legislature the power to offer an opinion that has some meaning about whether a piece of federal legislation is, in fact, within federal jurisdiction and in our system of government, that's not the role of the legislature. It's the role of the courts. So it's constitutionally dubious from that point. Of you. Then the second way that it would be constitutionally dubious is this new power that's been given to Cabinet to act without going back to the legislature. And I think there's almost certainly going to be a challenge to the constitutionality of that.

MG: There has also been pushback from first nations in Alberta who have said that their treaties are with the Crown, not with Alberta, not with the provincial government. And so does the act at all address those concerns?

LISA YOUNG: Well, there is a provision in the act that specifically says that nothing in the act is intended to take away from indigenous rights in the province. What that exactly means, I think we don't necessarily know, but there certainly is, I think, a deep suspicion and concern on the part of Indigenous communities in the province because of the very use of this term sovereignty. To the extent that this can be seen as some attempt to take Alberta out of a Canadian confederation or renegotiate confederation. Indigenous people are not being treated as as parties to that conversation. And so we've seen unanimous concern from the the leaders of the treaty organisations within Alberta.

MG: Also seen concern from the former premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, who recently called this idea catastrophically stupid yesterday. And speaking of earthquakes, he resigned effective immediately as an MLA. What does that mean for Alberta? Because he left. But he also said that he was concerned in the statement that he issued around the, you know, the issue of democracy in the province itself, saying that it's leading towards polarisation and saying that the democracy in some ways was being challenged by what Danielle Smith has introduced.

LISA YOUNG: Yeah. And, you know, it's really, the timing of his announcement was really interesting. It was well, just after the bill had been introduced and while the premier was holding a news conference about it. So, although he doesn't mention the Sovereignty Act in the letter of resignation, he does- you know, it certainly was a way to signal this. And he's spoken quite a bit, you know, in his last days in office about this question of of polarisation. And he's been pretty clear that he sees Smith and the people who supported her in the leadership as extremists and as polarising and as as dangerous. Now, there's you know, there are certainly different ways to look at this. There are those in the province who would say that he, in fact, opened the door to much of this. But certainly what has walked through the door, I think, is, you know, I think there are many who take quite seriously his concerns about this being outside the norms of Canadian democracy.

MG: Who's she playing to, do you think?

LISA YOUNG: Well, certainly. You know, Smith has faced a dilemma since she became premier, that she was supported in the UCP leadership by people who were very upset about COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates and people who were utterly enraged by the federal government. You know, the people who think that Trudeau is is, you know, terribly dangerous and and dictatorial. And so the Sovereignty Act was certainly a way to appeal to them. So this, I think, in many ways speaks to that base of supporters. The dilemma for Smith, though, is that there's going to be a provincial election at the end of May 2023, and it's not at all clear that the mainstream of Alberta opinion is with her now. I think that this is a gamble that you can get Albertans angry about Ottawa, that she can run against Justin Trudeau in the provincial election, essentially. But I think she may have overplayed her hand in including these emergency powers. I think that this might just have gone a step too far for that moderate, middle of the road Alberta audience.

MG: Just before I let you go, she said that she'd gotten Ottawa's attention. Do you think that she has?

LISA YOUNG: I mean, you know, is Ottawa paying attention to these pieces of legislation that are being introduced in Saskatchewan and in Alberta? Absolutely. Was Ottawa aware that there was discontent about these issues in the past? I think they were. I think the dilemma here is that having the attention of Ottawa doesn't necessarily mean that you get what you want. And now I think we're in a situation where Ottawa can't be seen to be caving in to these kinds of tactics. So I don't know that this has done anything for, you know, fighting off the the kinds of environmental provisions that I think really are a driver behind it.

MG: Can be seen to be caving in because in part, Saskatchewan might be watching to wait to see what unfolds, right?

LISA YOUNG: Well, absolutely, but not just that. I mean, any province that has a beef with Ottawa that can pass itself legislation saying that it is going to give itself special powers. Right? I don't know that this is a precedent that Ottawa is going to want to indulge.

MG: Lisa, good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

LISA YOUNG: My pleasure.

MG: Lisa Young, professor of political science at the University of Calgary. This is the current on CBC Radio. My name is Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

And as you said, if anyone in the world can pull this off, it's that man. And it's Messyyyy! Cherry on top. Argentina, cruising on to the semi final now. Come on. My goodness.

MG: My goodness. Indeed, it's hard to keep track of the beautiful goals scored by Lionel Messi. Argentine fans are hoping that he has more in store for them today as Argentina takes on Poland in the World Cup. If Argentina wins, they move on and nobody in that country wants to talk about what happens if they lose. Much of the pressure lies on the shoulders and in the boots of Lionel Messi, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, has won more awards and accolades than we have time to run through here this morning. There is one trophy, though, that has eluded him, and that is the World Cup. A lot of people in Argentina wondering what will happen if Messi, who says that this will be perhaps his final World Cup, is able to actually pull this off? People around the world paying close attention. Of course, that match will unfold later on today. And we'll talk more in just a moment about the new, unusual and unique position that he finds himself in as a hero in Argentina. But somebody perhaps who is not embraced as well as you might expect, given how great he is. Jasmine Garsd is an Argentine American journalist living in New York, correspondent with NPR, host of The Last Cup. It's a podcast about Lionel Messi. Jasmine, Hello.

JASMINE GARSD: Hi, how are you? Good morning.

MG: How excited are people? Or maybe nervous is the right word for this match today featuring Lionel Messi.

JASMINE GARSD: I mean, extremely excited and nervous. There is a lot happening there. There's, there's, we're hanging by a thread.

MG: So describe this. I mean, people love soccer around the world, but in Argentina, how would you describe the role that soccer plays in the lives of people.

JASMINE GARSD: In that country? I mean, soccer in Argentina, like in much of Latin America, is a religion for better and for worse. You know, I mean, but soccer really is everywhere. It's the religion. It's the national pastime. It's also kind of like the place of catharsis where you can go and just explode and really show your feelings. And it's also a a vehicle for social mobility. You know, if you're poor as a dream as to become a soccer player and make it in the world.

MG: You said for good and for for bad, though. I mean, that's those are the great moments of it where you can go and be part of something larger than life. But what's bad about taking the game as seriously as is that?

JASMINE GARSD: Well, you know, it leads to a lot of disappointment. I think, you know, as we've seen, especially with this World Cup, there's a lot of corruption. And, you know, my earliest memories of soccer are of beauty and joy and passion and also a lot of violence. I lived in a soccer neighbourhood and pretty much every time there was a game it was expected that a fight would break out and there would be very brutal police repression. So, you know, it was a little bit of both. It's a very complex passion.

MG: But the joy I mean, describe that joy. People, again, see the images of what it's like to be in Argentina when when the team is playing. What was that joy like for you when you were growing up?

JASMINE GARSD: Oh, for me, it was, you know, especially as a woman or as a young girl at the time, it was kind of just a space where it was a rare space where I got to sit with men like my grandfather and like my father and just really scream and shout and yell and curse in ways that maybe I wasn't otherwise allowed to as a as a girl, you know. So for me, it was like this place of of joy and excitement and again, also a fear, you know, of, you know, maybe on a given random Sunday action only being stuck on the street in the middle of a fight, you know. So it was both, but it was a very high emotion.

MG: And so at the centre of that emotion today will be Lionel Messi. Just briefly tell us his story. He was born in Argentina, but then left the country.

JASMINE GARSD: Yes. I mean, really what I find fascinating about Lionel Messi's story is that it truly is a story of economic migration, and it's rarely told in that way. He was born and raised in the countryside in a working class family. He was a soccer prodigy with a health problem. He had a serious health problem. And by the early 2000, Argentina starts to spiral into economic disaster and the country eventually collapses in 2001. And right before that, as the country spiralling his family who cannot afford his health treatment, his family decides to go to Spain. He and his dad go to Spain, where he starts playing soccer more professionally. But he has to leave his the core of his family, his mom, his siblings behind. And it's an extremely difficult situation. And I found that there were some universal themes there about emigrating as a young child.

MG: Tell me more about that and those universal themes.

JASMINE GARSD: I mean, for him, it's it's like this wonderful opportunity and this relief. He's 12 years old. He'll find himself in this position at 12, in which he essentially is kind of the family breadwinner. You know, he goes and he trains with Bars football club, which is this brilliant club. And then every afternoon after training, he goes home and he cries silently in his room. He knows he cannot fail. And I think that's one universal theme that that is just this becoming the core breadwinner of the family at a really young age. Knowing you can't fail, people are depending on you. He also has this enormous yearning and nostalgia for back home. He's always dreaming about going back and playing for the national team in like World Cups, for example. You know, what my podcast focuses on is how when he gets back to Argentina, when he finally achieves this dream, people don't like him that much. People have moved on.

MG: Why is that the case? Because you take a look at him now. He's one of the greatest players, perhaps the greatest player. Again, this is the subject of sports bar arguments and social media arguments, but one of the greatest players certainly of all time. But he exists in the shadow of another unbelievably great Argentinian player. And that's Diego Maradona.

JASMINE GARSD: Yeah. I think there's a couple of reasons. I mean, I think when Lionel Messi goes to Europe as a 12 year old, he has to learn to play in a really different way. He learns to play soccer in this European, very organised, very methodical way. And he goes back and people are like, Well, who is this guy? We've never heard of him. He just, he's a European kid now. He left a long time ago. So there's this whole identity crisis. The other thing is he doesn't seem to perform as well for Argentina, and that's another, you know, bar stool argument about why. But, you know, he's making all these record breaking moves in Europe and he is a historically good player in Europe, but he comes back to Argentina and puts on that blue and white jersey and just like a belly flop every single time. And so people start to get really annoyed at him, like, who's this European kid who just came back and isn't playing well for us? And on the topic of Diego Maradona, who is like the other legendary and controversial soccer player.

MG: Indeed.

JASMINE GARSD: Yeah, he represents something different. You know, he's Diego Maradona was a kid from the slums, you know, a brown kid from the slums who rose up against all odds. And he's just seen as quintessentially Argentine.

MG: And Messi is not, despite the brilliance of his playing, he's not considered quintessentially Argentine, in your words.

JASMINE GARSD: I think attitudes has shifted recently, in recent years, but for a very long time Messi was seen as an Argentine kid who left really young and became European. And when we're talking about these, like, universal themes of immigration, I'm in, you know, my day job as a news reporter. And I kept seeing this in immigrant communities over and over again. Like the people who leave, they're suddenly like this alienation from the home country, you know. And so he's seen as kind of I don't know, he comes to embody the resentment about people who leave the country. And I think there's like a lot of discomfort around his figure for a very long time.

MG: What about now? I mean, if you take a look at how he said this is his final World Cup and people wonder where he's going to end up after this talk, that perhaps he'll move to the United States and play in the league there for David Beckham's team in Florida. How do people in Argentina see him now with the possibility of the World Cup perhaps making its way back to Argentina?

JASMINE GARSD: I mean, people have a lot more affection for him now. I think there's been a growing awareness of how much he's struggled to to be accepted again. He also won several very important cups last year for Argentina. And so that definitely warmed people's hearts. Do I think he's going to be as beloved, fanatically, religiously beloved as Diego Maradona? No, I don't think that. I think Maradona just represents like kind of the core of Argentina's soul in a way that Messi might not. But people have a lot of affection. You know, I saw a tweet the other day that was it said Argentines usually want to win the World Cup for ourselves this time around. We want to win it for Messi. There's there's an understanding that he had a he had a difficult journey, you know.

MG: So Argentina has had a difficult journey in this World Cup. It lost its opening match to Saudi Arabia. You laugh as a fan who is part of that culture that that as you said, look at football and soccer in some ways as a religion. What was that match like?

JASMINE GARSD: Well, trust me, I wasn't laughing when that happened.

MG: I wouldn't think so.

JASMINE GARSD: I mean, it was very difficult. It was disappointing. I think that what I saw on the field was Argentina falling into the same old bad habits, you know, as a very individualistic playing of of relying on field completely as a strategy, which is not a strategy for a team. I mean, it doesn't matter if you have the best player in the world. If you're not playing as a team, you're not going to do great. And the strategy can't be pass it to Messi. He'll fix it. He's the best in the world. And I think it was just very frustrating, especially as we were coming off of such a great stretch of being undefeated for something like 36 games, 37, I don't remember the exact number, but it was like a historic stretch. It was very disappointing for sure.

MG: And so today Argentina plays Poland. Poland is a good team and Poland has has its own work to try to achieve. As a fan, bite your fingernails. Do you have like some sort of ritual or you paced back and forth or you only watch the programme, the match at a certain time, at a certain place with certain attire on. I mean, what is your what is your ritual to get ready for something like this?

JASMINE GARSD: My ritual is I mean, I try and not have a lot of people around me because I get very passionate and vitriolic and I kind of lose control of myself. But I have, um, I have lucky socks, actually. I have these lucky green socks with avocado prints that are just kind of the fact that they're still being held together defies all the laws of physics. And I have them and I wear them and, you know, do they work? I don't know. I was wearing them during the Saudi game. So I'm starting to question the whole ritual.

MG: But you wouldn't you wouldn't change that ritual now.

JASMINE GARSD: No. No, I wouldn't. No, of course not. I don't want to mess with that.

MG: The Socks will be mourned. As a neutral, I have no horse in this race, no preferred team. But I wish you the best of luck.

JASMINE GARSD: Thank you so much.

MG: Jasmine Garsd is a correspondent with NPR host of the podcast, The Last Cop. Argentina plays Poland today. Kick off is at 2:00 p.m. eastern. That is The Current for this morning. He is up next on CBC Radio One. Before we go, Argentina's much needed win over Mexico on the weekend had the team singing in the locker room. And this came, of course, after as we were talking about defeat to Saudi Arabia, a lot of people wondered how this team was going to do with the World Cup. Would it flame out and not achieve the expectations that Jasmine and so many other Argentineans were looking for. The team was singing in the locker room and sang one song in particular, “Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos a Ilusionar”, it translates loosely as boys we have our hopes up again. The song is by La Mosca. It's an Argentinean band that plays ska and rock and tango. We thought the match on its way we would leave you with that song today. Given the hopes that Argentina has no slight against Poland, of course Poland is a great team as well, and we wish them and Robert Lewandowski the best of luck. But this is for the Argentinean fans. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Wednesday November 30, 2022 Transcript

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