Canada ranks low in international comparison of patient wait times: report
TORONTO — It’s a common complaint — Canadians needing medical attention having to cool their heels in a hospital emergency room for hours on end before being seen by a doctor or another health-care practitioner.
Well, it turns out that compared to other industrialized countries, Canada has the highest proportion of patients reporting excessively long waits in an emergency department, a report released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows.
The report, part of a survey of residents in 11 countries sponsored by the U.S.-based Commonwealth Fund, shows 29 per cent of Canadians had to wait four hours or longer before being seen by a practitioner during their most recent emergency department visit.
That’s almost three times the international average of 11 per cent of patients who had to wait that long. Patients in France, Germany and the Netherlands fared the best, with one to four per cent reporting a four-hour-plus wait time.