Wait times at emergency departments in BC increased by over 10 hours in 2021.
That’s according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
One of the sharpest increases as the number of visits to emergency rooms for young children in the province (0-4 years old).
Clinical Database Lead, Nicole Loreti spoke with Vista Radio.
“It increased last year from the previous year. It went from 56,000 visits to more than 100-thousand visits for the 0-4 age group. That’s a 78% increase in volume.”
In addition, emergency department visits in BC surpassed the national average in 2021.
Loreti mentioned the numbers took a sharp increase once health measures from the pandemic started to ease.
“Especially for the admitted patient population. In BC, nine out of ten visits were admitted, patients that were completed in 47.7 hours, and that compares to the previous year where it was 32.8.”
“There was that drop in volumes in the previous year but 2021-22 it was pretty common in every province where we saw volumes rising up, approaching those sort of pre-pandemic visit volumes.”
Nationally, 9 out of 10 visits for admitted patients in Canada were completed in 40.7 hours last year, up from 33.5 in 2020.
Canadians spent more time waiting in emergency departments in 2021 than in any other year.
A link to the report can be found here.