Small southern Alberta health centres have lower ER wait times, study suggests

A new report shows wait times at Alberta ERs aren't improving, but waits in southern Alberta ERs are lower on average than in Calgary and Edmonton.

A new report shows wait times at Alberta emergency rooms aren’t improving.

But the study also shows waits in southern Alberta ERs are lower on average than in Calgary and Edmonton.

Alberta patients spent a median time of three hours and 48 minutes in total per visit last year.

The Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) found the median length of stay, from arrival to discharge or admission, has increased by 54 minutes in Alberta over the past five years.

Edmonton had the highest median time at nearly six hours, and Calgary comes in at just under five hours.

ER doctors say these numbers don’t tell the whole story.

“For the really sick patients, that’s the one that we should all be worried about—the sick patients that need to be admitted to hospital, they’re spending much longer in our emergency departments, like talking days and all of that,” said Dr. Paul Parks, Medicine Hat emergency physician.

“All of those kinds of links and increasing numbers compound to affecting Albertans and affecting sick people coming in—we can’t get the new sick people in, in a safe and timely manner.”

At Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, the study found patients waited a median time of one hour and 54 minutes before seeing a doctor and a total of four hours per visit.

In Medicine Hat, the wait time to see a doctor is one hour and 48 minutes, with a total visit time of three hours and 54 minutes.

The study found emergency wait times are considerably lower in many small community health centres in southern Alberta.

They are as low as 30 minutes to see a doctor in Bow Island, Crowsnest Pass and Fort Macleod.

MEI submitted freedom of information requests to each province seeking information on wait times.

Data for Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia was not available.

The full MEI publication can be accessed online.

The report puts Alberta ahead of most other provinces with available information.

But it also says patients should expect better still.

“They’re still faced with wait times that are abnormal in many developed countries, and it remains important to understand that, even within the province, wait times can vary tremendously,” said Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the MEI.

A spokesperson for the province’s Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services provided CTV News with a statement:

“Alberta’s government remains committed to ensuring all Albertans have timely access to health care. As the MEI notes in its release, ‘Despite the fact that Alberta performs better than most Canadian provinces, patients shouldn’t be satisfied.’ We agree—emergency department stays are still too long,” the province said.

“We’re taking action to reduce wait times by adding hospital beds and expanding assisted-living capacity for patients waiting to transition to more appropriate care settings. We’re also increasing the number of family physicians and investing in new urgent care centres across the province to ensure patients have alternatives when emergency care isn’t required.”

With files from Tyson Fedor