Edmonton emergency wait times the longest they have been in 7 years: FOIP documents

ER waits hit 7-year high Newly obtained numbers show Edmonton ERs are hitting seven-year highs. Saif Kaisar explains.

Editor's note: This article was published on Wednesday, Dec. 14. At that time, Dr. Mark Joffe was still listed on the Alberta Health Services website as vice-president and medical director with AHS. After this story was published, that post was removed from the website. CTV News was then informed on Friday, Dec. 16 that Dr. Joffe’s role with AHS had ended on Monday, Dec. 12.

Dr. Joffe now only holds the title of Alberta chief medical officer of health.

Emergency department wait times at Edmonton hospitals are the longest they’ve been since 2015, data from Alberta Health Services (AHS) has revealed.

CTV News Edmonton obtained the numbers through a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy, or FOIP, request.

AHS does make similar information publicly available online through its Annual Monitoring Measures Report, but the data is not broken down by month. The data obtained through FOIP, however, shows the monthly median emergency wait time for each individual hospital in Edmonton. Median time means that 50 per cent of patients wait this length of time or less to be seen by a physician.

Both the data in the Annual Monitoring Measures Report and that obtained through FOIP show much more accurately how long Albertans are waiting to see a doctor in emergency departments, especially compared to the wait times posted online by AHS. That measure which is updated every two minutes is only an approximate estimation only and can change significantly without warning.

When comparing the average yearly wait times between 2015 to 2022, all five Edmonton hospitals have had longer median wait times this year than in any of the seven years prior.

This remains the case if only January through September is compared for all eight years for an equal time frame comparison for the data available in 2022.

The AHS data shows that four out of Edmonton's five hospitals either matched their longest monthly wait time, or surpassed it this September.

The University of Alberta Hospital had the longest wait with a monthly median of 3.6 hours.

The other four hospitals ranged from a 2.6-hour wait to a 3.3-hour wait.

WHY ARE WAIT TIMES GETTING LONGER? 

In an interview with CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday, Health Minister Jason Copping attributed the higher wait times to a wave of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses.

“There’s also hangover from the COVID days when fewer people went to their family doctors, they delayed care. That’s coming back to hit our system right now,” Copping said.

The data shows a significant drop in the number of emergency department visits at all Edmonton hospitals in 2020. Those numbers have gone up in both 2021 and 2022.

Dr. James Talbot, a former Alberta chief medical officer of health and current adjunct professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Alberta, agrees Albertans avoided seeking emergency care during the pandemic because of fears of contracting COVID-19 in wait rooms.

“What we’re seeing here I think is mainly a surge in people who need to be seen because they have respiratory problems but it may also be people who cannot wait any longer,” Talbot told CTV News Edmonton.

The data also shows that some hospitals this year have longer wait times than prior years with fewer emergency room visits.

“I think what’s happening is that the CTAS scores have changed,” said Dr. Noel Gibney, a professor emeritus in the U of A's medicine faculty.

When patients go to an emergency department, they are given a Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) score according to the severity of their condition, Gibney explained in an interview.

According to Gibney, the majority of patients are classified as CTAS III through V, or as requiring urgent, less-urgent, or non-urgent care. A smaller number of patients are classified as CTAS I or II, scores that mean a patient is either severely ill and requires resuscitation, or that they require emergent care and rapid medical intervention.

“The number of CTAS I or II I suspect have gone up significantly,” he said.

In turn, Gibney believes, the higher volume of serious cases results in a slower turnover of emergency department beds, leading to longer wait times for those with less-severe conditions.

“I would be very much surprised if they’re not significantly worse now,” Talbot said of wait times for October, November and December.

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC HEALTH 

Talbot said government and public health officials are not taking enough action to address emergency capacity.

“It’s your leadership that’s responsible for looking at those numbers and doing something about it,” Talbot said. “There’s no hint that there’s a plan that they’re prepared to act on to help bring these numbers down. The plan is apparently to say nothing and hope things get better.”

Talbot says that the province's public health officials should be letting people know that respiratory viruses are circulating by running ad campaigns encouraging Albertans to get vaccinated for both COVID and influenza.

As well, he believes the public should hear from Alberta's interim chief medical officer of health (CMOH), Dr. Mark Joffe, who has said little publicly since taking on the role mid-November.

“Public health is without leadership,” Talbot said. “The chief medical officer of health has not appeared in front of the public. He’s holding down two full-time jobs when CMOH is more than a full time job by itself.”

Tuesday evening, Joffe posted on social media for the first time, writing he was happy to connect with the public online after "navigating some unexpected Twitter account issues."

He encouraged Albertans to stay up to date with their vaccinations, stay home when sick, and avoid crowded indoor spaces. He said wearing a well-fitting, high-quality mask can reduce risk of exposure.

“Data suggests we may have passed a peak in influenza, but it’s too early to say for sure. That said, it will remain a busy winter,” Joffe wrote.

“Even before COVID came, the system was barely surviving, barely holding on. Add COVID, add influenza, add RSV on top of that, and the system is broken. The system needs to be rebuilt,” Gibney said.

“I think that we desperately need both as a country and as a province to have honest and open conversations as to how we are going to repair our health-care systems.”

INVESTING IN CAPACITY 

“COVID has exposed a number of cracks in the system,” Copping acknowledged in the interview with CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

The minister says that newly appointed  AHS administrator Dr. John Cowell is working on improving emergency department wait times, including by adding capacity to the various levels of care.

The United Conservative government also continues to invest millions of dollars into the health-care system through adding beds in both intensive care units and long-term care, noted Copping.

“We are investing in more capacity and we have invested in capacity. Budget 2022 [allocates] an additional $600 million this year and then actually adding more money to next year and the year after that.”

Should the current situation worsen, the minister says that AHS has a response plan in place for building out surge capacity.

“All of this gives us enough time to build overall capacity in our system and improve the entire flow through the system,” he said.

In the meantime, Talbot wants to remind Albertans that individuals can make a difference.

“Don’t despair,” he said.

“We’ve shown that we can make good decisions… So let’s just do what we know needs to be done.”