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Most frostbite amputation hospital visits in Edmonton last year were for homeless patients

Original source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/most-frostbite-amputation-hospital-visits-in-edmonton-last-year-were-for-homeless-patients-1.7086836 Retrieved: 2026-07-04 Author/date: Taylor Lambert, CBC News, Jan 18 2024 CBC id: 1.7086836

Filed the same week the sweeps peaked and standing was denied. The FOI behind it came from the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights' own lawyer — the frostbite data and the lawsuit are the same story.

Key figures

  • "58 per cent of frostbite amputation visits during the last fiscal year involved homeless patients. That figure was an increase from 39 per cent the previous year." (fiscal year = April–March, so each year contains one full winter.)
  • "Edmonton's homeless population was estimated at around 3,000 individuals during 2023 — about 0.3 per cent of the city's total population." (a ~0.3% population absorbing a majority of frostbite amputations.)
  • Methodology note: this dataset counts visits where an amputation was performed, not amputation codes (the earlier 91-figure dataset), and doesn't count digits/limbs lost or individual people.

The FOI provenance (ties frostbite to the lawsuit)

  • "The data was obtained through a freedom of information request filed by Chris Wiebe, a lawyer representing the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights."
  • Wiebe: "It's important to quantify the impacts of houselessness and, we believe, in part the impacts of encampment evictions on the houseless community." The law-enforcement-first approach "contributes to this problem of exposure to cold and cold-related injuries, including frostbite and even frostbite amputation."

Doctor: likely an undercount

  • Dr. Sandy Dong (ER physician, 20 years in Alberta): the only surprise is that the homeless share "isn't higher"; "If anything, I think the number of homeless individuals represented here might be an undercount" (old/inaccurate addresses on charts).
  • Dong on encampments as symptom: "the larger problem is the fact that people are houseless, and they've resorted to encampments to survive."