New data shows Canadians visiting the emergency department spent even more time on their trips than in years past. That report, newly published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, also breaks down the top 10 reasons for those visits. For the fourth year in a row, "abdominal and pelvic pain" was the number 1 reason for visiting the emergency department. Out of the visits analyzed in 2023-24, more than 444,000 people cited abdominal or pelvic pain as the reason for their trip, 93,000 more visits than the next most-cited reason, throat and chest pain. Other reasons for emergency department visits this past year included upper respiratory infections, back pain, urinary system disorders, swollen throat (pharyngitis), cellulitis (skin infection) and open wounds. The data also specifies the lengths of those visits, measured by the number of hours needed to resolve 90 per cent of cases. The problem resulting in the longest visits was urinary system disorders, which took up to 12.3 hours. Abdominal and pelvic pain was next, at 10.3 hours, followed by cellulitis. The past four years Over the past four years, abdominal and pelvic pain has been at the top of the list, and throat and chest pain has also remained number 2. Back pain was the third-most cited issue in 2020-21 and 2021-22, but in the past two years, acute upper respiratory infections have risen to the third spot.
