Ottawa hospital ER wait times exceed provincial average

The average wait time to see a doctor in all Ottawa hospital emergency departments exceeded the provincial average in June, with the Ottawa Hospital General Campus having one of the longest wait times in Ontario.

New statistics from Health Quality Ontario show the average wait time for a first assessment by a doctor in the ER was 2 hours in June across Ontario.

The wait time at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus was 4.1 hours, the longest of all hospital emergency departments in Ottawa and the third longest in Ontario.

The average wait time to see a doctor in the emergency department was 2.4 hours at the Montfort Hospital, 2.7 hours at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus, 3.1 hours at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital and 3.5 hours at CHEO.

The Windsor Regional Hospital – Metropolitan Campus had the longest wait time for a first assessment by a doctor in the emergency department in Ontario at 4.7 hours, while the wait time was 4.5 hours at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

The Hawkesbury and District General Hospital reported a wait time of 3.8 hours for a first assessment by a doctor in the ER, while the wait time at the Kingston General Hospital was 2.5 hours.

Wait times for admission

The average wait time for a patient to be admitted from the emergency department to the hospital in Ottawa ranged from 10.8 hours at CHEO to 19.2 hours at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus.

The wait time for admission was 11.9 hours at the Montfort Hospital, 14.8 hours at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital and 16.9 hours at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus.

Across Ontario, the average wait time for admission was 17.9 hours in June.