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Ottawa residents wait longer than most in the province for emergency care, according to recent provincial statistics.

Wait times to see a doctor and obtain treatment are higher than the provincial average in all hospitals in the city.

At Queensway Carleton Hospital, patients wait twice as long as the provincial average for an initial assessment by a doctor, according to recent provincial statistics.

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On average, Ontario residents wait two hours at emergency departments before an initial assessment with a doctor, according to H.Health Quality Ontario, the agency that oversees the province’s health operations.

But that’s far from the whole story.

Overall, emergency room stays are much longer. On average, non-urgent patients spend a total of 3.2 hours in the emergency room and high-urgent patients spend an average of 4.7 hours in the emergency room.

Patients waiting to be admitted to hospital stay there much longer – an average of 19.2 hours, just 27 per cent of the provincial target of eight hours.

These patients often wait in hallways or cubicles on stretchers intended for short-term use, which Dr. Samir Sinha, a leading Ontario geriatrician, has compared to torture, particularly for the elderly who constitute a high number of patients waiting to be admitted to hospital.

At the Ottawa Hospital General Campus, CHEO and Montfort Hospital, patients wait an average of 2.7 hours before an initial assessment by a doctor. At TOH’s Civic campus, patients wait an average of 2.8 hours for an initial assessment.

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In Queensway Carleton, the average wait for an initial assessment is four hours, double the provincial average. This is the third longest wait time in the province.

The longest wait times in the province — at the end of August — occurred at the Hawkesbury and District General Hospital, east of Ottawa.

In other measures, Queensway Carleton Hospital fares better than other Ottawa hospitals.

It takes longer for the most urgent patients to be treated at The Ottawa Hospital and Montfort, for example, and the QCH, at 18.3 hours, is lower than the provincial average of 19.2 hours for that patients are admitted to hospital after an emergency. Waits are longer at other Ottawa hospitals.

Those expectations caught the attention of Premier Doug Ford this week, who during a news conference partially blamed the problem on too many patients going to emergency departments for non-urgent issues.

“The emergency department is for emergencies, not for little Johnny cutting his leg or whatnot,” Ford was quoted as saying. He also said emergency doctors he spoke with estimated that 50 percent of people should not go to the emergency room.

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His comment sparked immediate backlash from doctors and physician organizations, who said it misrepresented the problem by blaming it on patients and could discourage some from seeking the medical care they need.

The Ontario Medical Association has called on the province to focus on increasing access to doctors, not limiting it.

“Ontario’s emergency services are here to provide care when it is needed most, and patients should never feel discouraged from seeking help when and where they need it,” said declared the OMA in a press release.

Perth emergency physician Dr. Alan Drummond co-authored a position statement from the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians that concluded, among other things, that overcrowding in emergency departments is largely due to lack of access to hospital beds.

“Contrary to popular perceptions, emergency department overcrowding is not caused by inappropriate use of emergency departments or high numbers of lower acuity patients presenting to emergency departments; “The inability of admitted patients to access inpatient beds from emergency departments is the single most significant factor causing emergency department overcrowding in Canadian hospitals,” according to the release.

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On Saturday, Drummond said it was frustrating to hear Ford blame patients after years of research that showed hospital capacity is the primary cause of overcrowded emergency departments, not patient overutilization.

“Much work has been done internationally and in Ontario on the issue of overcrowding, but these results have been widely refuted. It is sad to see governments continue to focus on myths and put all their effort into trying to blame and shame patients. Until we understand that we need to reduce hospital capacity to a safe 85 percent occupancy level, we will continue to attack this problem.

Ontario has the second lowest rate of hospital beds per population in the country.

Officials at Queensway Carleton’s emergency department acknowledged this week that patients are waiting too long for care and said they are working to improve the efficiency of the busy department to reduce those wait times.

“There are many factors as to why our wait times are long, too many to count,” said Dr. Adam Nicholson, chief and medical director of the hospital’s emergency services. “In the end, unfortunately, our patients wait too long to be seen, they are the ones who suffer.”

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They urged patients to continue going to the hospital when they need to and stressed that the sickest patients would be seen first.

“We understand how frustrating this can be for our patients and their families,” said Paula Archambault, clinical director of intensive care, emergency and mental health at the hospital.

She added: “If a patient feels the need to go to the emergency room, they should come. We take their concerns seriously and are proud of Queensway Carleton Hospital and the level of patient satisfaction we have recorded. It’s a source of immense pride and we don’t want to see that change.

She said the hospital had launched a project to significantly reduce the time patients wait to be admitted to an inpatient bed. That wait time improved by 7.7 hours compared to last year, Archambault said.

The hospital is also working on projects to reduce the time it takes for initial patient assessments by changing the way patients flow through the emergency department.

Queensway Carleton has also seen a recent increase in patient complexity and acuity.

“It’s definitely a factor in the wait times,” Nicholson said. “When patients are more complex, it takes longer. »

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