Here’s how long you have to wait to see a doctor in an Ottawa hospital ER

The Montfort Hospital sign is seen in this undated photo.

Three Ottawa hospitals have some of the longest waits for a first assessment by a doctor in the emergency room in Ontario, while only one hospital meets the provincial average for the waiting time to see a doctor.

New statistics from Health Quality Ontario show the average wait time for a first assessment by a doctor across Ontario was two hours in September.

The average wait time to see a doctor at the Montfort Hospital was 1.7 hours in September, the shortest wait time in Ottawa.

CHEO and the Queensway-Carleton Hospital had the longest wait times for a first assessment by a doctor at 3.5 hours, the fourth longest in Ontario. The average wait time for a first assessment by a doctor in the ER at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus was 3.4 hours in September.

At the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus, the average wait time to see a doctor was 2.7 hours.

The Belleville hospital had the longest average wait time for a first assessment by an ER doctor in Ontario at 4 hours in September, followed by the Windsor Regional Hospital’s Metropolitan Campus at 3.9 hours and the University Hospital in London at 3.7 hours.

The average wait time at the Winchester District Memorial Hospital for a first assessment by a doctor was 3.3 hours in September.

Time in the hospital

While the Montfort Hospital is below the provincial average for the wait time for a first assessment, it has the longest average length of stay for low-urgency patients not admitted to a hospital.

Health Quality Ontario says on average, low-urgency patients spent an average of 7.7 hours in the emergency room in September. In July, the average length of stay in the ER for low-urgency patients not admitted to the hospital was 6.3 hours.

The provincial average was 3.3 hours during the month.

The average length of stay for low-urgency patients in the ER not admitted to the hospital was 5.7 hours at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, 5.5 hours at CHEO, 5.3 hours at the General Campus of the Ottawa Hospital and 4.9 hours at Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus.