Wait times for people seeking care at emergency departments across Ontario have dramatically increased over the past five years amid a “deepening Ontario hospital funding crisis,” according to a new report.
The study, published Monday by the left-leaning think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, found that 90 per cent of patients waited 4.5 hours for an initial assessment by a physician at a hospital emergency room in Ontario in 2024/2025, up from 2.7 hours in 2020-21. This, the report states, represents an alarming 67 per cent increase over a five-year period.
“Emergency department wait times are a canary in the coal mine for health system performance,” Andrew Longhurst, the author of the study, said at a news conference on Monday morning.
