A recent report says one in 10 patients — equalling around 180,000 people — who were admitted to an emergency department in Canada spent more than 48 hours waiting for an inpatient bed in 2024-25.
In addition, about 1.5 million people spent more than 14 hours in emergency rooms during the same time span, a 28-per cent increase from 2018–2019.
The data released on Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information highlighted that many emergency departments across Canada “are facing challenges with overcrowding, staffing shortages, and limited bed and stretcher capacity that have not kept pace with growing demand.”
The report says older adults and people with chronic conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure are often in the emergency department the longest.
“Longer waits for physician assessment are associated with potential risks, including worsening clinical condition, reduced timeliness of care and a greater likelihood of adverse events,” the report reads.
There were 16.1 million visits to emergency departments across Canada in 2024-25, according to CIHI. Twelve per cent of those visits resulted in hospital admission.
What is contributing to long wait times?
Cheryl Chui, director of health system analytics at CIHI, said that longer wait times “are really due to factors that are originating outside of emergency departments.”
“We’re seeing patients with more complex needs arriving in the emergency department as well as where we are seeing challenges moving patients through hospitals and into the next level of care when they’re ready to be discharged,” she said.
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“So together, these pressures are contributing to longer wait times in the emergency departments, which means that improving emergency department wait times will involve looking at the entire health system.”
The report states that only age was associated with a longer wait time for a bed, as admission rates “increased with age, and older patients tended to wait longer.”
In addition, patients who could be discharged to long-term care homes, home care or rehab centres were found to be waiting an average of 24 days in hospital inpatient units.
“This likely reflects both bed availability and bed type. Younger patients are more often placed in the next available bed, while older patients with comorbidities or isolation requirements must wait for an appropriate bed, such as an isolation bed or a bed on a specialized unit.”
This is a sector of the health-care system that Dr. Michael Howlett, physician and former president of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, believes needs fixing.
“Our population demographics are increasing in age. Our population, therefore, is aging. We’re seeing many more people with multiple health conditions, significant complicated health problems, and they take a lot more time, a lot of work, a lot of hospital care, and then they take that much more care when we try to get them back into the community,” he said.
“There needs to be much more emphasis on how we as a society are going to take care of our elderly frail.”
In addition, the report cites “ongoing staffing shortages” that have led to temporary closures of some emergency department sites, with patients in rural and remote areas in particular being affected. One in four hospitalizations among people living in rural/remote areas were found to have “a high or very high travel burden — a burden which increases with the level of care specialization.”
This is an area that Howlett does not see improving quickly.
Chui also added that “tackling emergency department wait times is really a health system issue that extends beyond the emergency department and the hospital.”
“We see the symptoms of the pressures across the health system manifesting in longer emergency department wait times. But our data suggests that improvements will require system-wide coordinated action across multiple sectors, including primary care, hospital, home, and community care and long-term care.”
This is 100% the fault of every liberal voter who has ever voted for JT or MC.
Liberal voters are a plague of stupidity on this country.
@Gregory Jurgen – if you haven’t been to a hospital, a lot of medical service are faces from immigrant families. Next time, when you and family are looking for medical help, maybe ask for white medical service to help and see how long or how nobody will come to your aid. Do it.
PP would had let our medical system run to the ground so his buddy from the insurance company can control our medical system and setup a paid tier system on who gets the best medical priority. No thanks.
And to the parents of the two sick kids that you brought into the ER at Northern Lights Regional Health Services in Fort McMurray, Alberta? It is not funny to order a pizza and let your “sick” kids wreak havoc all over the waiting room. Out. Out. Out. When are we going to start getting rid of these deadbeats?
One can always see the worst of Canada by reading the lunatic rantings of our Reich wing filth in these comments.
Global is owned/funded by Corus and Shaw, not the Feds.
50 years of neoliberalism and right wing trickle down fiscal policy has destroyed our public sector, hospitals included.
Tax the corporations. Wealth transfer from the oligarchs. Build more hospitals. Bring in skilled doctors and nurses to staff the hospitals. Save our public goods, stop destroying them.
End neoliberalism.
The government should give scholarships for students to pursue medicine – be it nursing, doctor or a specialist. This will help more people into the system who are caregivers.
Alberta nurse starting wage: $87,000–$93,000+
Quebec nurse starting wage: $55,000–$65,000
No wonder Alberta has long wait times, we have less nurses than other provinces because they get paid more so we cannot afford more.
Obviously, high immigration will add huge strains to any system in the country, best way to solve it? Mass deportations, why? Because there are too many people in the country for anything to keep up, and immigration hasn’t slowed down at all they just renamed a new system that functions like the tfw program but it’s not called a tfw program, they are good at word play.
Without deportations, how long until what’s happening in britain happens on canadian soil… wait, wasn’t there 4 Indians that shouldn’t be in the country were caught with 4 girls being used for sexual exploitation in the back of a uhaul going all over the gta? Funny how it’s not talked about anymore huh? The government must pay media well
ELBOWS UP, BOOMERS!
100% agree with Matthew. The answer is obvious – no more immigration until our infrastructure has caught up. That idiot Trudeau just wanted to look good on the world stage by opening the door to everyone.
Lets do some data checks.
2015
Population 35,851,800
Number of hospitals 999
2025
Population 41,548,787
Number of hospitals 1,087
Note: there are also always temporary workers and students on visas that I have notvaccounted for which would obviously exacerbate supply issues further.
The population increases were driven almost exclusively by immigration and refugees that tend to be sent to large cities for the services available if they do not speak French or English.
And, because so many of you have the memory retention of goldfish, I will remind you that we lacked sufficient beds in 2015.
There is no mystery to unravel. There is no study needed to be authored by highly trained professionals whose expertise could be used for better things than pointing out the obvious.
What we need is a full stop on immigration until we can increase our capacity for more.
Lets be clear, if increasing the population by a record 6 million didnt satiate business needs for workers, nothing will and we should call it the scam that it is.
I do not hate immigrants nor am I idiotic enough to consider immigration a race discussion.
I am the first generation of Canadians in my family. Everyone else, was an immigrant.
Arithmatic is not bigotry.
An Independent Alberta without the constraints of the Canadian Health Act and with the additional income of not having to give other provinces most of our Federal tax money could have one of the most effective and efficient health care systems in the world
This is meaningless data. Perhaps the actual report is enlightening but you people tend to exaggerate claims and misinterpret basic data.
When it began, it wasn’t political dynamite. Now it is. It’s a shameful and unnecessary situation to be in. Unfortunately, the absence of political bravery, a common problem, has allowed this to happen.
Hopefully, the ensuing uproar will scare the politicians into action.
I like how our tax dollar funded media refuses to mention that importing 5MM unvetted people in 3 years tends to have this effect. They just point fingers at provincial gov’ts.
Third-world country!