Almost half a million Quebecers left ERs without being treated last year, study finds

People waiting in a hospital ER. (Swidda Rassy / CTV News)

Nearly 430,000 Quebecers were forced to leave a hospital’s emergency room without receiving treatment last year, according to a new study by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).

“These patients are not leaving because they feel better, but because the system is failing them,” said Emmanuelle B. Faubert, an economist with the MEI and author of the report. “Thousands of Quebecers are being denied access to care each year.”

The study finds that in 2024, Quebec recorded more than 3.7 million emergency room visits.

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Of these, 428,676 ended with a patient leaving before seeing a doctor - 11.6 per cent of all visits, and an increase of 8.8 per cent since 2019.

Across Canada, the institute points out that of 16.3 million emergency room visits, 1,267,736 million patients left unseen - one in every thirteen visits - for a national average of 7.8 per cent and an overall increase of 35.6 per cent.

“The deterioration is observed nationwide, as rates of premature departures have risen significantly since 2019,” said the MEI.

The study notes that most patients leaving an emergency room untreated in Quebec are classified as either P4 or P5, representing semi-urgent or non-urgent cases.

“Because they are deemed low priority, these patients are pushed to the back of the line and face some of the longest ER waits,” the study notes. “This testifies to a lack of access to primary care.”

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The researcher emphasized that patients forced to delay or forgo care often end up suffering from worsened conditions, which can complicate their cases.

“Solving the crisis in primary care is essential if we want to keep patients from continuing to fall through the cracks,” said Faubert. “Policymakers must find the political courage to open up health care delivery to independent and alternative providers, or else this crisis is bound to get worse.”

18 per cent of people return to ERs

The MEI’s numbers are echoed by Santé Québec, which told CTV News that in the last three years, almost half a million people per year left an ER without being seen.

In 2024-2025, 70 per cent of those departures involved users classified as priority 4 or 5.

“These are users whose needs can be met by other health professionals,” Santé Québec said. “It is important to remember that Quebec has a higher proportion of P4-P5 users compared to several other Canadian provinces.”

Additionally, the organization says 18 per cent of people who leave before being treated return to the emergency room within 48 hours.

Santé Québec equates the delays to both the province’s ageing and growing population, noting that complex cases requiring greater attention can also lead to longer wait times.

“Currently, Santé Québec is working to reduce wait times in emergency rooms,” the organization told CTV News. ”As of today, in one year, the average time spent in the emergency room (for P1 to P5 users) has decreased by 12 minutes, from two hours 58 minutes to two hours 46 minutes, a reduction of 6.7 per cent."

As such, Santé Québec says it is implementing “concrete solutions” to reduce wait times, including revising criteria for patient referrals following triage, revising the role of medical coordinators, redirecting non-urgent patients to other alternatives and more.

The MEI adds that it is also recommending additional ways to increase access to care, including expanding the use of specialized nurse practitioner clinics, granting a broader scope of practice to pharmacists and creating non-governmental immediate care medical centres, similar to the system in France, for non-life-threatening emergencies.

The MEI’s national data doesn’t include patients living in Saskatchewan or those covered by New Brunswick’s Vitalité Santé health network, as the health authorities did not provide the requested data.