What's behind 18 hour emergency department wait times at LHSC?

The wait time has reached 18 hours for all but the most serious medical conditions treated at London’s two emergency departments.

“Certainly this is the most strained we have been in the emergency department,” explains Dr. Christie MacDonald, citywide chief of emergency medicine at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC).

Patients are being told to prepare for a lengthy wait by bringing a water bottle, phone charger, book, and snacks to the ER if they have non-urgent or non-emergent conditions including:

• Cuts
• Sprains
• Simple fractures or broken bones
• Earaches
• Fevers
• Coughs and colds

“They are waiting a significant length of time to be seen, but all of our patients are waiting longer periods of time than we would want,” adds Dr. MacDonald.

The strain is being felt by all areas of emergency healthcare.

According to the union representing paramedics in London and Middlesex County, the growing wait times are taking a toll.

“When a patient is waiting 18 to 20 hours, that means the dayshift paramedic is handing over to the night shift, and sometimes the night shift is handing (the patient) back over to the same day crew,” explains Jason Schinbein, president of OPSEU Local 147.

“It’s devastating to inform the patient and inform their families that they have to wait 10 hours for an emergency situation and 18 hours for an urgent situation,” adds Abed Al-Nasser Kaddoura, vice president of OPSEU Local 147.

Wait times have reached an average of 18 hours after steadily increasing over the past three to four months.

MacDonald says multiple factors are all contributing to the problem, including sicker patients presenting more complex conditions, a rising demand for care, and the province-wide staffing challenge in healthcare.

“There is not one solution, there are multiple solutions, and having the entire system working together,” she says.

Schinbein worries that wait times could grow even longer.

“When you see a paramedic taking care of five people in the hallway that’s a bad sign of where it’s going,” he says. “I promise it will get worse if we don’t start taking aggressive action to correct the problem now.”

LHSC emphasizes that people experiencing serious medical emergencies should not hesitate to seek care.

People experiencing less-serious medical conditions should seek care at their family doctor, walk-in clinics, St. Joseph Health Care’s Urgent Care, or Telehealth Ontario.