The average patient in the emergency room of four of Ottawa’s five hospitals waited more than two hours to see a doctor in April, more than the provincial average.
New Health Quality Ontario statistics show that patients waited an average of 1.9 hours to see a doctor in Ontario emergency rooms in April, the third month in a row with an increase in just wait.
In Ottawa, the average waiting time to see a doctor for an initial evaluation in the emergency room was between 1.8 and 3.4 hours in April. Three Ottawa hospitals were ranked among the top 12 for the longest waiting times in Ontario.
At Montfort Hospital, patients waited an average of 1.8 hours to see a doctor in the emergency room in April.
The Ottawa Hospital civic campus recorded an average wait of 2.5 hours, while patients waited 3.4 hours on the Ottawa Hospital general campus. The average wait was 2.8 hours at Queensway Carleton Hospital.
Emergency patients waited an average of 3.4 hours to be evaluated by a CHEO physician.
The average length of stay in the emergency department for “low-emergency patients” who do not require hospital admission ranged from 3.5 hours at Montfort Hospital to 5.4 hours at CHEO. The average length of stay in the ER for “low-emergency patients” at Ottawa Hospital was 4.4 hours on the civic campus and 5 hours on the general campus.
Dr. James Worrall, an emergency physician at Ottawa Hospital, told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s “CFRA Live with Andrew Pinsent” that health professionals are running out after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Only in our department, for example, have we seen a large turnover of our nursing staff. Many people who have been with us for a long time have left. They have reached the end of their rope,” he said. “We have a lot of wonderful nurses, new and younger; we’ve been able to hire, but we still have a small staff. It’ll be a while before we get to a new balance, but there’s no way to avoid it.”
Worrall also said the types of illnesses that doctors see in the emergency department have become more complex as the population ages.
“As people get older, they develop more illnesses. Fortunately, we now have better treatments and people are able to live with a chronic illness. But when you live with a chronic illness, complications develop and problems arise. They are often not scheduled. “This means that the complexity of the problems we have seen in the emergency department has never been greater.”
Patients with more complex needs require more time to treat, which means the number of patients an emergency department doctor can see in an hour is declining, Worrall said.
Ottawa hospitals have warned patients to wait longer than usual in the emergency room due to the volume of patients.
Last weekend, CHEO said he was living a “spring weekend like no other” with an overflowing emergency room and lack of beds. At one point, 16 patients were waiting in the emergency room for up to 48 hours for a hospital bed.
“Since Friday we have more young people than usual for this time of year who come to us with viruses, traumas and more serious injuries than normal. Broken bones, head injuries, etc .: ailments that require hospital admission.” CHEO said in a statement on Twitter. “But we don’t have free beds.”
CHEO said its emergency department experienced the busiest May in history and is about to set a patient record in June.
Hawkesbury and District General Hospital had the second longest wait to see a doctor in the Ontario emergency room at 3 p.m. Windsor Regional Hospital – Metropolitan Campus had the longest wait to see a doctor for an initial assessment in April, at 5 p.m.