For desperate parents looking for children's painkillers amid shortages across the country, they have the option to use a pill cutter on adult-sized pills to create smaller doses, according to a family doctor based in Toronto.

Dr. Marla Shapiro, a medical specialist at CTV News and an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, said the process must be done very carefully using a proper tool and cannot be done manually.

Also, although a million bottles of children's medicine were imported to Canada this week, many parents do not have time to wait and need treatments now for their children suffering from fever, Shapiro said on CTV News Tuesday, adding, "This has been going on for months, with no immediate answer in sight. We hear there will be a million boxes on shelves within a week, but it is still ongoing."

Similarly, the federal government announced on Thursday that it has leveraged foreign supply chains to bring a million bottles of painkillers to Canada. The supplies, including liquid ibuprofen and liquid acetaminophen, will be provided to hospitals, community pharmacies, and retailers.

Parents are also reminded not to bring children who are not in respiratory distress to the emergency room due to the patient influx across the country. The pressure on hospitals is due to what some experts call a "multiplex" of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, and COVID-19.

Children’s hospitals across the country are under severe pressure, with many operating at over 100 percent capacity, with wait times sometimes exceeding 24 hours, as some non-emergency surgeries have been delayed to alleviate the pressure.

In the same regard, Shapiro said that in the absence of medicine for children to reduce fever, parents can carefully convert adult doses to give to their children.