ER wait times at Oakville hospital among worst in Ontario

If the time you’re waiting in the emergency department at the Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH ) seems real extensive, it is.

That’s because wait times at OTMH are among the worst in the province of Ontario, according to data from Health Quality Ontario, a government agency that tracks the quality of health care in the province.

In April of this year, a patient in Oakville waited 3.5 hours on an average per visit to the emergency department in Oakville.

Only Windsor Regional Hospital’s average wait time, at five hours, is longer in Ontario.

That’s nearly double the average wait time than most hospitals across the province. On average, emergency department patients waited 1.9 hours to see a doctor in Ontario hospitals.

The numbers are compiled by the province to see how long patients spent in emergency departments in hospitals across the province at various stages and depending on their condition.

The length of stay in the OTMH emergency department for low-urgency patients not admitted to the hospital was 3.9 hours on average. Some 58 per cent finished their emergency visit with a target time of four hours.

The length of stay for high-urgency patients not admitted to the OTMH was 5.6 hours with 83 per cent of those patients finishing their emergency visit with the target time of eight hours.

For all patients admitted to the Oakville hospital, the length of stay was 29 hours with 15 per cent of those patients admitted to hospital from emergency within target times of eight hours.