Wait Times in Ontario Emergency Rooms Have Risen In the Past Five Years

Another sign of Canada's decline:

Wait times for people seeking care at emergency departments across Ontario have dramatically increased over the past five years amid a “deepening Ontario hospital funding crisis,” according to a new report.

The study, published Monday by the left-leaning think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, found that 90 per cent of patients waited 4.5 hours for an initial assessment by a physician at a hospital emergency room in Ontario in 2024/2025, up from 2.7 hours in 2020-21. This, the report states, represents an alarming 67 per cent increase over a five-year period.

“Emergency department wait times are a canary in the coal mine for health system performance,” Andrew Longhurst, the author of the study, said at a news conference on Monday morning.

“Emergency departments with long wait times and overcrowding signal that the overall health system is struggling to meet patient demand.”

Wait times for hospital admission from the emergency department also saw a significant increase, the report states.

In 2020-21, 90 per cent of patients in the emergency department who were waiting to be admitted into hospital waited an average of 29 hours. That jumped to 44 hours in 2024-25, an increase of 52 per cent, the report states.

These indicators, Longhurst said, demonstrate a system that is “under immense strain.”

He noted that 55 per cent of hospitals in the province carried a deficit in 2024-25 and new data indicates that this number will increase to 70 per cent by the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Longhurst said small hospitals are overrepresented in the group of hospitals running deficits. About 61 per cent of hospitals with operating revenues under $100 million ran a deficit last year despite representing only 49 per cent of all Ontario hospitals.

By contrast, of the hospitals with operating revenues above $100 million, only 49 per cent ran a deficit but represent 51 per cent of all Ontario hospitals.

“Smaller and rural hospitals are among the hardest hit by provincial funding austerity,” Longhurst said.

“Smaller hospitals generally have fewer resources to draw upon than large urban hospital systems… The report raises concerns about the ongoing financial sustainability of smaller hospitals if provincial funding fails to cover increasing operating costs.”

By region, northern and western parts of the province were more likely to see hospitals with deficits.

In the Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) regions of Erie St. Clair and Mississauga Halton, all hospitals were in deficit last year.

“Provincial funding austerity is shrinking the public hospital capacity required to ensure patients receive timely access to care,” Longhurst said.

He added that the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) has previously estimated that $6.4 billion in new health care spending is in needed in 2026-27 “just to maintain 2024-25 service levels.”

Despite this, the province has only earmarked $3.4 billion in additional spending, leaving a $3 billion shortfall in that fiscal year.

“Costs in the hospital sector have been increasing by about six per cent each year due to population health, aging, and inflation, according to the Ontario Hospital Association,” Longhurst said.

 

Population?

Like migrant population?

Granted the healthcare scheme has been collapsing for a long time, but surely one can't ignore the prized class of non-tax paying beneficiaries of Canadian taxpayer generosity?