Thank you, Dr. Whitney and Madam Chair.
I have been the consulting psychiatrist of the eating disorder program in the north for the past 10 years, since I immigrated to Canada from the Republic of Ireland.
There are four key points that I want to bring up to the committee. First is the increasing number of hospitalizations that we've seen in the north around eating disorders. Second is that we have absolutely no in-patient eating disorder treatment facility in northern Ontario. Third is the increasing comorbidities and mortalities with regard to eating disorders, and fourth is the lack of adequate training of health care professionals in eating disorders.
I will briefly give a specific case of a patient I had who had a BMI of less than 10. To provide context, BMI stands for body mass index, for those who may not be familiar with it. The normal BMI is between 18.5 and 25. For extreme anorexia, we're talking about a BMI of less than 15. This young lady had a BMI of less than 10, which is almost not compatible with life. For such a person, you would think that it's going to be an emergency and a referral down south, but because of the lack of available beds.... There was no bed anywhere, irrespective of the fact that her BMI was less than 10. She ended up in the ICU twice with refeeding syndrome and almost died. Luckily, we were able to keep her in the hospital. She stayed in the hospital for a long time, six to eight months, and luckily she recovered.
Since COVID, we're definitely increasing in number. Again, to provide context, between 2017 and 2018, the number of hospitalizations of females was about 1%. During the peak of COVID in 2021, it rose to 3.2%. As we speak now, as of July, the percentage has gone up to 4.3%. We have people waiting to be transferred to the United States.
I'm going to stop at this point. I know there are probably going to be a lot of questions with regard to eating disorders.
I have also seen, during the course of my research, that there has been a big focus on eating disorders on the part of this committee
Thank you for this opportunity.