About two years ago, Suzanne noticed that her daughter was getting thinner and thinner. The Ottawa resident suspected that her daughter, then 14, had developed bulimia. By December 2019, she was struggling to get out of bed and looked gravely ill. Her parents were worried about her heart: purging a symptom of bulimia that can involve self-induced vomiting, laxative misuse, and other behaviours can cause imbalances of the electrolytes that help maintain a regular heart rhythm.
In January 2020, Suzanne’s daughter agreed to go on a wait-list for an eating-disorder clinic at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. About two months later, as COVID-19 began upending the world, their family doctor instructed her to go to the emergency room immediately. She was admitted to the hospital’s inpatient eating-disorder program later that day.