TORONTO - A review of Ontario’s hospital emergency departments finds most patients get to see a doctor quicker than they used to, but many of the sickest people spend hours or even days in hallways waiting for a bed.
Health Quality Ontario said people are seeing doctors faster when they go to a hospital emergency room and their visits are shorter even though patients are becoming collectively older and sicker.
The provincial health agency said the maximum amount of time most patients waited to see a doctor in an emergency room dropped 36 minutes over seven years to three hours. There was also a drop of nearly an hour in total time spent in emergency wards, where nine out of 10 patients now spend a maximum of seven hours and 48 minutes.
“Despite a 13 per cent increase in the volumes seen in ERs over the last five or six years, and despite a growing and aging population, we’re seeing significant improvements in reducing the wait times in ERs,” said Health Minister Eric Hoskins.
Health Quality Ontario said people in cities spend longer in the emergency department and wait longer to see a doctor than those in rural areas.
And it found “many of the sickest patients” — those who need to be admitted — have to wait a long time in the emergency department because people who should be in long-term care are taking up hospital beds.
“Patients may spend hours and sometimes even days lying on stretchers in emergency examination rooms or hallways,” said Joshua Tepper, CEO of Health Quality Ontario.
Premier Kathleen Wynne said the government provided additional funding to address problems with getting patients who can be cared for in other situations outside of hospitals to free up beds for people who need them.
“There have been a number of years of constraint ... and hospitals have done a great job in changing their practices and improving their triage processes in emergency rooms, but there is a need for more investment,” Wynne said Tuesday. “So yesterday there was $140 million that recognizes that there needs to be more support for hospitals, particularly around emergency rooms.”
Hoskins said there was a three per cent increase in hospital funding in this year’s budget, but the $140 million announced in Monday’s fall economic statement will be divided among the 145 hospitals in Ontario, and it won’t be dedicated to emergency departments.
“It varies, so in London it will be used more for hip and knee (surgery) wait times, and in Niagara it will be for the MRI wait times,” he said. “There are some hospitals that are seeing huge volumes because of growth in the communities, so we’re addressing those capacity issues.”
NDP health critic France Gelinas said part of the problem in getting alternate level of care patients out of hospitals to free up beds is that community care nurse practitioners earn less than their colleagues in hospitals.
“They’ve had a salary freeze for eight years in community care (for nurse practitioners) but not in the hospital sector,” she said. “In the community they cannot recruit and retain nurse practitioners because they can work in the hospital for $30,000 a year more with good benefits and a good pension plan.”
Hoskins said the government has increased funding for home and community care by five per cent a year, with another $250 million this year.
“For those ER patients that require admission, we need to continue to make sure those individuals who are occupying hospital beds, those alternate level of care patients, can find the supports they need outside the hospital,” he said.