At Meds, a pharmacy in Etobicoke, Ont., pharmacist Dave Huges told CTV News Toronto they see an average of five to 20 extremely sick children a day.
“There’s a line that forms most nights where people are asking questions about one drug or another,” he told CTV News Toronto on Thursday.  “There is some urgency in many cases.”
Two separated parents said in interviews that they planned to travel or had traveled to Buffalo, New York, seeking relief for their children.
“My granddaughter had a lung infection and the doctor said to give her Tylenol,” one woman told CTV News Toronto.  “He had a really bad headache and a cough, but you can’t find Tylenol, you can’t find anything, so this Saturday, I’m going to Buffalo.”
Another caregiver, who said they were only able to find a small amount of infant Tylenol in Toronto, said they recently traveled to Buffalo in search of medication.
“It was so hard,” she said.  “I went to a Shoppers recently but all they had was baby Tylenol and only a small amount and they wanted a prescription from a doctor to get it.”
“I decided on my own terms to go to the states, to Buffalo, and they had a few bottles left.”
He bought just one of the bottles and drove back to Ontario, he said.
RELATED STORIES:
Health Canada blames the shortage of painkillers, or pain-relieving drugs, on unprecedented demand, while many pharmacists say there has been a months-long supply shortage.
This week, the federal health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, said the drug shortage was due to a growing wave of respiratory illnesses.
“Demand for painkillers has skyrocketed,” Duclos said.  “We now understand very well that this is due to the serious viruses that are affecting our children across Canada.”
Officials also point to a sharp increase in hospital admissions of children.  Locally, at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, emergency room wait times are increasing by an average of 12 hours.  In their general medicine unit, occupancy rates have reached 133 percent, the hospital confirmed.
In Ottawa, CHEO, the Children’s Hospital of Ottawa East, recently had to open a second pediatric care unit.
But pharmacist Amir Khela of Toronto says supply has been dwindling for months.
“He left for what?  Three months now?”  he said.  “It’s definitely a supply problem.”
Meanwhile, Health Canada said manufacturers are ramping up production, with some producing “at record levels.”
He said he had recently approved the “excellent” import of ibuprofen from the United States and was working to do the same for acetaminophen from Australia, to supply hospitals.
Health Canada is also working to do the same for community pharmacies and consumers, he adds, although the agency did not provide a timeline for when that will happen.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Heidi Petracik