Emergency Room Waiting Times

Yes - I think some people go to the ER when they don't really need to. And that makes the wait times long.

But it certainly isn't always 8 hours in every hospital across Canada.

I fell walking the dog one day and wasn't sure if I'd broken or just sprained my ankle I don't think I was there for more than 2 hours, including seeing the doctor. (It was just sprained.)

From what I've heard of the US system, I'm quite happy with the Canadian one. Thanks.

 

Oh for sure, i think the Canadian system is one of the best! (im going through for a doctor)..I just think we have to implement more primary care initiatives so people don't rely on the ER, which could decrease wait times. But in general some of the waits and waiting lists are way too long

 

In a way,I'm lucky. I have really bad lungs and as soon as I go,I'm taken in.
I'm kinda known there,so the nurses know,if I go to the E.R.,it's serious. I don't go UNLESS it's the last resort and most of them know that. I may have to wait in the room,to see the Dr.,but they always give me oxygen right away. ( You'd have to know my history and it's way to involved to explain). I will tell you that I bottom out really fast,so they don't mess around with me.

 

The minor emergency centers that I am thinking of are freestanding and are not part of the hospital. Usually you can get in and out of there very quickly. The centers associated with hospitals have shared services with the hospital and you will be competing with hospital patients for those resources.

Most of the minor emergency centers are actually family practice doctors who operate a clinic that takes walk-in patients.

One thing that never gets mentioned in discussions about the Canadian system is that it is operated and managed by the province not the federal level. From what I've seen, Ontario's is well managed, as is British Columbia's. Quebec's system has too many people and too few resources. I've heard many people in the Montreal are complain about wait times and the over-crowding in the emergency departments.

 

The waiting hours are usually 2-3 hours where I live, but if you're pregnant, you get almost immediate attention. My sister went to the ER once and a minute after she signed her papers, a nurse took her to get treated.

 

Usually OB patients don't stop in the ED unless they've suffered trauma like a motor vehicle accident. After the first trimester, they will go to the OB unit for evaluation.

 

Yes, the healthcare system in Quebec (especially in Montreal) is not so well managed. Missing doctors, missing physical hospital space, etc. One thing that's getting very popular is a "clinique sans rendez-vous" (clinic without appointments), where you just arrive early in the morning and get to see a doctor quickly instead of going to the ER. Or we also have private clinics where you pay but you get treated faster.

As for the emergency rooms, the wait times can be variable. My friends/family have waited anywhere from an hour to 7-8. (Of course, for "real" emergencies it's right away.)

Even with it flaws, I *much* prefer our healthcare system here in Canada to the U.S. one.

 

The last time I went to an emergency room was about a year ago and I was seen within an hour, maybe half. It could apparently have been a precursor to meningitis, so it was a serious thing, and they also had to get someone from neuro to come down and see me (I have a neurological condition so any sudden and severe issue in the head makes me panic). I was in the Royal Children's Hospital (I wasn't quite 18 at the time).

 

She was complaining about severe pain in her ribs and it turned out that the baby had caused it. Would that be considered more appropriate for her to go to the OB unit or the ER?

Swamp56, that's ridiculous. Pregnant women seem to be first priority at the ERs in my area, no matter how long others have been waiting. Children also usually get quicker service. Don't know if that's fair or not.

 

There's no such thing as "free" healthcare. In Canada, we may not pay when we go to the doctor, but we pay through our taxes. People go on about "No lineup at US ER's", but that's if you can PAY to go to "the best". Look at Swamp56, even with his insurance paying $800 or $2000 there can still be waits. That's the other thing, he's lucky to have insurance. There's a ridiculous number of Americans that cannot afford any healthcare coverage, or can only afford "catastrophic" coverage, or have an extremely limiting HMO's.

Any way you cut it, healthcare is expensive. Unfortunately, to try to make the best of what money there is, that means you run into things like wait times. Yes it'd be nice if every time you walked into the ER you immediately saw a doctor, but do you know what that would cost? With the triage system there is now, urgent cases do get seen right away.

As other people mentioned one problem with ERs is some people go there instead of a family doctor or walk-in clinic for minor stuff, which clogs things up. At the hospital near me they recently opened a new ER facility, which I believe is actually going to include a "Walk in clinic" practice to take the burden off of the actually ER.

 

Yeah for me in Canada even it can be pathetic. At times my parents have had to wait for nearly 3 hours just because they rank things as "Non-Emergent" (which is white), "Emergent" which is yellow, and "Extreme Emergent" (Actually not sure about that, it's been three years since I worked in the Emergency Room at my hospital) (it's labeled in Red). Depending on the pulse, blood pressure and such they take when you come into the Emergency, and depending on the severity, they'll rank you as one of the three. This past Christmas (after don't worry, not on Christmas day, just holidays) I was having a lot of problems swallowing, and my uvula was even touching my tongue, like it had gotten a bacteria or dust on it, so I was gagging a lot. But when I went in, I got Non-Emergent and had to wait 2 hours before they finally see me and tell me "just buy some ice cream and popsicles to make the swelling go down". I felt like SUCH AN IDIOT but I had never heard of a uvula becoming swollen to the point of touching my tongue and making me gag, so I felt I NEEDED to find out.

But yeah, the emergency rooms around North America are all crap.

 

2 hours isn't THAT bad for something deemed not-urgent. Better than 4-8 hour stories that I hear.

Did the applying ice cream / Popsicle work? Was there an infection? Did you almost die? (Not feel like you were going to die, but actually almost die)

If you're not almost dieing, sorry, it isn't an Emergency. Do you people understand what it would cost to have 30 second wait times to tend to a papercut? If you come in with major trauma you are usually seen to right away. That's "Emergency".

Isn't London University hospital supposed to be pretty good? At least as far as quality of care.

 

Well my experiance with A&E has always been pretty good nomatter how many times I've gone in with broken bones and other stuff. Same with the local Drs sugery

The only complaint I have about british hospitals is the lack of space, last time when I was in for a week waiting to be put under a general anastetic so Drs could check out my severly fractured ankle there was so little bed space I was put into a private room on the childrens ward ( I was 18 so it was a case of cover the last digit of your birth date with your thumb and say your 17 if we get inspected )

But then the NHS means that I didn't have to pay. If bieng taken to the ER in america costs $2,000 then I think its going to be at least another decade before my taxes pay for all my hospitalisations and treatment

I guess everthing are swings and roundabouts. Still I prefer the British and Canadian systems where everyone has acess to a moderate service to the American one where people who can aford majorly expensive heath insurance get brilliant care and everyone else gets charity and scraps. That really dosn't seem fair as thouse least able to pay for medical treatment are often the most in need of it

 

Three hours!
I had a broken leg!

 

As strange as it seems, if the fracture is closed, the bone is stable and there's a pulse distal to the break, then three hours is acceptable.

 

I had gone to my cardiologist because I has having some heart rythm issues(going way too fast) and after I was seen in the office he told me to go to the ER and he would meet me there.I got to the hospital around 4:30 and since it was a cardiac issue they admitted me right away.The IV was put in and then they shocked my heart (using Propofol) By the time the procedure was over it was 5:15 and then I waited to be admitted for observation.At 8:15 my mother went to ask the nurse when I was going to be moved and they had actually forgotten about me.At 11pm I was finally sent up to a room.Turns out that the nurse manager(who is a friend of my dad's because my dad is a nurse) had had a room ready for me 4 hours earlier at 7pm.