The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) said Canada's hospital emergency rooms are in crisis "and patients across Canada are waiting far too long to receive necessary care."
The CMA said it's not just one hospital or community but a Canada-wide issue that needs to be addressed so that quick access to high-quality team-based primary care becomes the norm.
The information was part of a recent statement by CMA president Dr. Kathleen Ross, who said despite the best efforts of physicians, nurses and other health workers, some patients in Canada are waiting as long as 20 hours to get care.
"Staff shortages and hospital overcrowding combined with poor access to high-quality team-based primary care are leaving hospital emergency departments woefully under-resourced for the avalanche of patients with influenza, COVID-19 or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) at this time of year," said Ross in a written statement.
She added that hospital ERs should be for emergencies and not a substitute for a walk-in clinic or a missed doctor's appointment.
Ross's comments are similar to the Ontario Auditor General's report on the state of Ontario hospital emergency rooms issued in December.
The auditor's report noted that ERs were facing a crisis because of the shortage of doctors and nurses which meant there was an unusually high demand for Locums (temporary fill-in physicians) at hospitals across Northern Ontario.
The auditor's report also published statistics (2022-23) on the time it took for an Ontario patient to be seen by a physician in the ER, with the South Bruce Grey Health Centre (Chesley) having the best time of roughly 35 minutes, while the Windsor Regional Hospital (Metropolitan campus) had the longest time of four hours and five minutes.
Unlike walk-in clinics, emergency rooms are set up to see emergency cases and will accommodate the most urgent cases first.
