Lanark County council is considering throwing its support behind a push to create Ontario’s first law protecting children in emergency rooms, following a motion from the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus that calls for strict wait time limits and more nurses on hand when kids need urgent care. The WOWC motion backs Finlay’s Law, named after 16-year-old Finlay van der Werken who died in 2024 after waiting more than eight hours in an Oakville ER without seeing a doctor.
Finlay was triaged as needing urgent care on February 9, 2024, yet he sat for eight hours and 22 minutes before being assessed. By then, he had developed hypoxia and pneumonia from sepsis. He was later transferred to SickKids Hospital in Toronto, where he died. His family has since filed a lawsuit against Halton Healthcare Services and gathered more than 32,000 signatures on a Change.org petition demanding change.
The motion endorsed by the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus asks the provincial Ministry of Health to set legal limits on how long anyone under 18 waits for a doctor in an ER. Finlay’s Law would require a physician to see a child within two hours of arrival, and if admission is needed, that it happen within eight hours. It also calls for safe nurse-to-patient and doctor-to-patient ratios, independent oversight to review pediatric deaths in ERs, and better funding for emergency readiness for kids.
[Quote from Lanark County Warden Richard Kidd to be verified and inserted if confirmed.]
The motion also urges the federal government to hold Ontario accountable for Canada Health Act standards through funding conditions. It points to research estimating that between 8,000 and 15,000 Canadians die prematurely each year because of ER overcrowding. A June 2026 Ontario Medical Association survey found 74 percent of ER doctors call overcrowding severe or critical, and 76 percent say it affects their ability to give timely care on most shifts.
Right now, Ontario has no law that sets wait time standards or staffing ratios for children in emergency rooms, even though about 20 percent of all ER visits in the province are for patients under 18. Most kids end up in general hospitals, not specialized pediatric centres, where readiness for young patients can vary widely. The Finlay’s Voice campaign, driven by Finlay’s parents Hazel and GJ van der Werken, continues to push for these reforms, and a coroner’s inquest has been granted to examine the circumstances of Finlay’s death.
