April data offers glimmer of hope on ER, urgent-care wait times

The provincial government is hoping new hospital emergency room data is the beginning of a trend towards shorter wait times.

But it’s still to soon to tell whether the recent improvement is just a one-month statistical blip.

According to the most recent wait time data from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (set to be officially released Thursday but obtained by the Free Press), the overall wait time at emergency rooms and urgent-care centres in Winnipeg fell 15 per cent in April compared with the previous month. It was also down eight per cent compared with the same month in 2024.

It’s not quite cause for celebration, since there have been similar one-month drops over the past year-and-a-half. But it is a promising sign.

The median wait time in Winnipeg for all ERs and urgent-care centres in April was 3.32 hours. That’s down from 3.92 hours in March and a slight improvement from 3.6 hours in April 2024.

The median wait time is the point at which half of patients wait longer and half are seen by a doctor or nurse practitioner sooner.

In other words, many patients wait longer than the posted median wait time.

The good news, though, is even some of the longest wait times are showing improvement. The so-called 90th percentile wait time — where nine out of 10 patients have shorter wait times and one in 10 wait longer — fell significantly last month. It was 8.75 hours in April compared with 11.13 hours in March. The 90th percentile wait time in April 2024 was 9.70 hours.

But will it last?

Median wait times at ERs and urgent-care centres peaked at four hours in December 2023, a little over a month after the NDP was sworn into office. There were improvements in 2024, but wait times began to grow again late last year and rose to 3.97 hours in February of this year.

What is encouraging, though, is every hospital in Winnipeg showed improvement in ER and urgent-care wait times in April, including at St. Boniface Hospital, where wait times fell to 3.95 hours from 5.55 hours.

Grace Hospital saw its median ER wait time fall in April to 5.07 hours from 6.78 hours in March.

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Both of those hospitals have had some of the longest wait times in the city in recent years. And while there have been some recent improvements, hospital congestion at those facilities — which backs up into ERs and causes long wait times — is still at crisis levels.

The 90th percentile wait at Grace in April, for example, was 10.30 hours, meaning 10 per cent of patients waited longer. It’s an improvement over the previous month and is slightly better than it was in April 2024. But it’s still historically high and means many patients are getting substandard care.

Long ER wait times are caused mostly by patients who are admitted to hospital but have to wait — sometimes days — for a bed on a medical ward.

When those patients pile up in ER hallways, doctors and nurses have less time to see newly arriving patients, which exacerbates the problem.

The province is hoping that additional hospital staff added to medical wards over the past 18 months is beginning to bear fruit.

There have also been other changes made to hospitals that could be contributing to the recent drop in ER wait times. For example, hospitals are now able to discharge patients on weekends, something they didn’t have the staff to do before. That frees up hospital beds sooner and takes pressure of ERs and urgent-care centres.

Even if the recent improvements hold, ER wait times in Winnipeg are still far higher than they were seven to 10 years ago when they hovered around two hours (often dipping below the two-hour mark).

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Even if the recent improvements hold, ER wait times in Winnipeg are still far higher than they were seven to 10 years ago when they hovered around two hours (often dipping below the two-hour mark).

They rose dramatically from 2021 to 2023, roughly doubling in length. That was part of the fallout from the previous Progressive Conservative government’s move to consolidate hospital operations in Winnipeg, including closing some ERs and converting three of them to urgent-care centres.

One of the NDP’s key campaign promises in 2023 was to “fix” health care, including bringing down ER and other hospital wait times. So far, they haven’t been able to do so in a sustainable way.

But the recent data could be a sign that things are improving. We won’t know for at least a few more months whether it’s a longer term trend or just another blip on the radar screen.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom Brodbeck is an award-winning author and columnist with over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.

Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.