P.E.I. ER wait times among the worst in the country in 2023-24

The new numbers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show ER wait times for patients admitted to hospital on Prince Edward Island are double the national average.

“Our emergency departments are often referred to as canaries in a coalmine by experts,” said Karla Bernard, P.E.I. Green leader. “When our emergency rooms are struggling, it’s a clear sign our entire system is struggling.”

The median wait time, from coming into the ER to being admitted to another hospital unit, is 35.6 hours on P.E.I. The national average is just 14.7 hours.

The bottleneck remains not in the ER itself, but in transferring patients from the ER into the rest of the hospital. ER doctors say that’s what needs to get fixed to solve this problem.

Health Minister Mark McLane said that’s what they’re working on.

“Investments in long-term care are very important,” said McLane. “Our home care is actually another investment that we’ve made. We have about 2,500 visits a month in order to try to keep people home and out of hospital, as much as possible."

Since March 1, 70 per cent of less-urgent visits to the Charlottetown ER took more than 10 hours. Thirty per cent of the most urgent patients waited more than 10 hours.

“We don’t actually know just how long waits were, because 10 hours is the maximum reported time online,” said Bernard. “That poor canary is dead.”

The median stay for a less-urgent patient who is ultimately discharged from a P.E.I. ER is 5.5 hours, more than double the national average of 2.6 hours. The island is about on par when it comes to urgent cases.

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