The wait time to see a doctor in the emergency room increased at three Ottawa hospitals this summer, with the Queensway-Carleton Hospital having one of the longest waits in Ontario.
Statistics from Health Quality Ontario show all five Ottawa hospital emergency rooms exceeded the provincial average for wait times for a first assessment by a doctor in July, which was 2 hours.
The wait time at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital was 4.1 hours in July, up from 3.9 hours in June. The west end hospital has the third longest average wait time for a first assessment in the ER, behind Hawkesbury and District General Hospital (4.7 hours) and Windsor Regional Hospital – Metropolitan Campus (4.4 hours).
The average wait time for a first assessment in July was 2.8 hours at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus emergency room (2.5 hours in June), 2.6 hours at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus (3.2 hours in June), 2.6 hours at CHEO (3.1 hours in June) and 2.6 hours at the Montfort Hospital (2.2 hours in June).
Health Quality Ontario also looks at the average time “low-urgency patients” spend in the ER without being admitted to hospital, with the provincial average of 3.2 hours. Here is a look at the average time patients spent in an Ottawa hospital ER without being admitted:
- CHEO – 4.2 hours
- Ottawa Hospital Civic Hospital – 4.8 hours
- Queensway-Carleton Hospital – 5.4 hours
- Montfort Hospital – 5.6 hours
- Ottawa Hospital General Campus – 6.1 hours