Anyone who has visited an emergency room in Alberta in recent years knows to expect a wait if not critically ill or injured, and now a new report confirms wait times have increased.
The report by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) has found the median length of stay in an Alberta emergency room was three hours and 58 minutes in 2024 — up 54 minutes over the past five years.
The median length of stay from arrival to unit transfer or discharge is the middle value of trips to the ER — meaning half were longer, and half shorter.
The report found the median time to see a doctor in an Alberta emergency department was one and a half hours last year.
Despite the wait times, Alberta actually ranked among the top three provinces for shortest visit lengths.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s median time in an ER was two hours and 45 minutes, while some New Brunswick hospitals had an average time of three hours and 21 minutes.
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Visits in Quebec were found to take the most time, clocking in at five hours and 23 minutes.
The report says despite Alberta having shorter wait times than other provinces, patients shouldn’t be satisfied with the current state of affairs — a thought shared by the provincial government.
In a statement, the Alberta Ministry of Hospitals and Surgical Health Services says “delays in Alberta’s emergency departments are shorter than in other large provinces — but that’s still not good enough.”
The statement goes on to say the government is “taking action to reduce wait time by adding hospital beds and expanding assisted living capacity…. we’re also increasing the number of family physicians and investing new urgent care centres across the province to ensure patients have alternatives when emergency care isn’t required.”
Chris Gallaway, executive director of the Friends of Medicare advocacy group, says the data in the MEI report doesn’t tell the full story.
“There’s no doubt that our emergency room wait times are high, unacceptably high we would say.
“We’re also seeing closures across the province, which aren’t tracked through wait times because the facilities are completely closed, often for days on end, especially in the summer.”
According to Gallaway, Alberta has the highest number of people accessing emergency care and he says that points to other issues in the health-care system.
“It’s a domino effect where we don’t have enough doctors and other health professionals to provide the care we need where it’s needed,” explains Gallaway.
“Ultimately things end up in emergency room if you’re not treating it somewhere else.”
Gallaway says a robust staffing plan is needed before any relief is felt in emergency rooms.
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