Average ER wait times in Ontario reaches new high, data shows
Average wait times for patients being admitted to an Ontario hospital from an emergency room appear to be steadily increasing, with a new record reached in October.
New data released by Health Quality Ontario (HQO) on Thursday shows patients spent an average of 22.9 hours in an emergency room that month waiting to be admitted.
This is up from 21.3 hours in September and 20.7 hours in August. It also represents the highest average wait time for hospital admissions from Ontario ERs in the last year.
According to the HQO, just 21 per cent of patients were admitted from the ER within the provincial target of eight hours.
For patients not being admitted to hospital, wait times were significantly more manageable. On average, about 88 per cent of high-urgency patients left the emergency room within eight hours and 72 per cent of low-urgency patients finished their visit within the target time of four hours.
On average, the HQO says patients waited about 2.2 hours in an emergency room for their first assessment by a doctor.
The data comes weeks after five of Ontario’s largest health care unions issued an appeal to the Doug Ford government, saying the government’s current plan to address the overburdened health-care system is "failing miserably."
Health Quality Ontario data shows the average ER wait times for patients being admitted in the last year.
The Progressive Conservative government released their plan to stabilize the health-care system in August. Their strategy includes an investment in private clinic surgeries, a pledge to add up to 6,000 new health-care workers and Bill 7—legislation that allows hospitals to transfer patients waiting for a long-term care home spot to a home not of their choosing or serve them a daily $400 fee.
The goal, the government said, is to free up beds in acute care for those who needed it.
However, months after the plan was announced, patients and front-line workers are still reporting long wait times and a lack of beds. Many hospitals have also said they are operating over capacity in part due to the triple threat of influenza, COVID-19 and RSV this fall.
Last month, Liberal MPP Dr. Adil Shamji told reporters that September 2022 was the worst on record for hospital wait times, “extending all the way back to 2008.”
“No matter how you look at this data, whether it month over month, or a year over a year, health-care performance is continuing its dramatic nosedive and unfortunately is now in freefall,” he said at the time.
An Ontario Health report showed that in September, an average of about 949 patients were waiting for a hospital bed in an emergency room at 8 a.m. daily.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones has previously said that long wait times in hospital emergency rooms “are not new issues and not new problems.” The PCs have repeatedly said the issues with the province’s health care stem from before they were elected in 2018 and that their government is “not okay with the status quo.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the minister told CTV News Toronto they are taking a "team Ontario approach" to the problem, including increasing hospital capacity by adding 3,500 new hospital beds.
“We know emergency department volumes have been increasing year over year and we are not okay with the status quo," they wrote.
"We have also worked with pediatric hospitals to ramp up their capacity where possible"
The Ontario NDP has expressed concern for the health-care system heading into the winter months.
"They expect more people to get sick, more demands on their services, more children to get sick, more demands on pediatric care," NDP MPP and Health Critic France Gélinas said. "It is taking a toll on all of us."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Orca calf that was trapped in B.C. lagoon for weeks swims free
An orca whale calf that has been stranded in a B.C. lagoon for weeks after her pregnant mother died swam out on her own early Friday morning.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
'I was scared': Ontario man's car repossessed after missing two repair loan payments
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
Powerful tornado tears across Nebraska, weather service warns of 'catastrophic' damage
Devastating tornadoes tore across parts of eastern Nebraska and northeast Texas Friday as a multi-day severe thunderstorm event ramped up in the central United States, injuring at least three people.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Trump's lawyers try to discredit testimony of prosecution's first witness in hush money trial
Donald Trump's defence team attacked the credibility Friday of the prosecution's first witness in his hush money case, seeking to discredit testimony detailing a scheme between Trump and a tabloid to bury negative stories to protect the Republican's 2016 presidential campaign.