The average patient in the emergency department at four of Ottawa’s five hospitals waited more than two hours to see a doctor in April, longer than the provincial average.
New Ontario Health Quality statistics show that patients waited an average of 1.9 hours to see a doctor in Ontario’s emergency department in April, the third consecutive month with an increase in waiting time.
In Ottawa, the average waiting time for a doctor’s first assessment in the emergency department was between 1.8 hours and 3.4 hours in April. Three hospitals in Ottawa are ranked in the top 12 for the longest waiting time in Ontario.
At Montfort Hospital, patients waited an average of 1.8 hours to see an emergency room doctor in April.
The civilian campus of the Ottawa hospital reported an average wait of 2.5 hours, while patients waited 3.4 hours on the Ottawa hospital’s general campus. The average wait was 2.8 hours at Queensway Carleton Hospital.
Patients in the emergency department waited an average of 3.4 hours to be evaluated by a doctor at CHEO.
The average length of stay in the emergency department for “low emergency patients” who do not require hospital admission varies from 3.5 hours in Montfort Hospital to 5.4 hours in CHEO. The average length of stay in the emergency department for “low emergency patients” at the Ottawa Hospital is 4.4 hours at the Civic Campus and 5 hours at the General Campus.
Dr. James Warral, an ambulance doctor at an Ottawa hospital, told CFST Live’s Newstalk 580 CFRA Live with Andrew Pinsent that health professionals had been burned after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Only in our ward, for example, we saw a lot of turnover of our nursing staff. Many people who were with us for a long time left. They reached the end of their rope,” he said. “We have many wonderful, new, younger nurses; we have managed to hire, but we are still short of staff. It will take a long time before we reach a new balance, but there is no way around it.”
Warrell also said that the types of diseases that doctors see in the emergency department have become more complex with the age of the population.
“With age, people develop more diseases. Fortunately, we now have better treatments and people can live with chronic diseases. But when you live with chronic diseases, you develop complications and problems. “Often they are unplanned, and that’s how you come to the emergency room,” he explained. “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 treatment time, which means that the number of patients that an emergency physician can see in an hour is declining, Ural said.
Ottawa hospitals warn patients to wait longer than usual in the emergency department due to the volume of patients.
Last weekend, CHEO said it was experiencing a “spring weekend like no other” with an overcrowded emergency room and no beds. At one point, 16 patients were waiting in the emergency room, up to 48 hours, for a hospital bed.
“As of Friday, we have more young people than normal for this time of year, who come to us with viruses, injuries and injuries that are more severe than normal. Broken bones, head injuries, etc .: diseases that require hospital admission, “CHEO said in a statement on Twitter. “But we have no beds available.”
CHEO said its emergency department had experienced the busiest May so far and was aiming to set a record for patients in June.
Hawkesbury and County General Hospital had the second longest wait to see a doctor in the Ontario Emergency Department, 3.5 hours. Windsor Regional Hospital – Metropolitan Campus had the longest wait to see a doctor for an initial evaluation in April, at 5 p.m.
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