The death of Prashant Sreekumar made headlines across Canada when the 43-year-old father of three died in the emergency room of Edmonton’s Grey Nuns hospital after waiting for eight hours with chest pains.
Recently, there have been other reports of preventable deaths in Alberta ERs. Alberta doctors have called the emergency room situation a disaster, citing a tsunami of seasonal respiratory illnesses that have overwhelmed hospitals and led to crowded emergency departments.
Widespread vaccination for common respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19 and the flu, would help to relieve the pressure on hospitals. Yet vaccination rates for seasonal illness are falling across Canada. Our research shows that conflicting messages across levels of government and skepticism about whether the vaccines work may be helping to fuel the emergency-room surge.
This winter is not the first bad virus season in Alberta, nor is it the first time we’ve seen patients die waiting for care. During the 2022-23 viral illness season, a “tripledemic” of viruses rolled across the country, as COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) circulated simultaneously.
Our research showed how this tripledemic also slammed working parents trying to maintain their jobs while they and their children were infected over and over again.
With seasonal vaccination rates declining each year, Canada now falls far short of the 80 per cent vaccination coverage needed to protect at-risk groups such as seniors or people with chronic illness.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
This year could prove even worse. The 2025-26 season marks a new height in influenza cases, rising above a three-season high. Hospitals across the country have been flooded with patients, and burnt-out health-care workers have been putting in extra shifts.
Despite all of this — and the overwhelming research that shows influenza vaccines keep people out of the hospital — fewer Canadians are getting vaccinated. With declining seasonal vaccination rates each year, Canada now falls far short of the vaccination coverage needed to protect at-risk groups such as seniors or people with chronic illness, which is 80 per cent.
Who do Canadians trust on health care?
Our research explored parental decision-making in Alberta during the tripledemic to understand why, or why not, people get themselves and their kids vaccinated for COVID-19 and influenza. Using Viewpoint Alberta survey data, we found that who parents trust and the messages governments provide around vaccination strongly influence whether they and their kids get shots.
During the pandemic, parents in Alberta faced conflicting messages from governments. Despite the promotion of vaccination by the federal government and public health agencies, the provincial United Conservative Party government took a strong stance against enforcing COVID-19 protective measures. For those who trusted the provincial government, this essentially negated any pro-vaccination messaging provided by other institutions.
Our study found that those who trusted the federal government as a source of health information were more likely to have vaccinated their children for COVID-19 than those who supported the Alberta government’s messaging.