ER wait times slowly improve, WRHA says

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This article was published 25/05/2022 (848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steps taken to improve patient flow at Winnipeg emergency departments and urgent care centres are starting to yield a reduction in wait times.

Shared Health data for the last seven days show the median wait to be seen decreased to 2.55 hours. That compares to April data that show the median time for patients waiting to be seen increased by four minutes to 2.87 hours.

“Wait times are now trending in the right direction,” Winnipeg Regional Health Authority chief executive officer Mike Nader said in a Zoom call with reporters Thursday.

“That’s a significant improvement,” Nader said. In April, the longest wait for most patients increased by about two minutes to 7.62 hours.

“Part of our challenge has been staffing,” said Dr. Shawn Young, chief operating officer at Health Sciences Centre.

“We still have a lot of sick calls as a result of COVID and we’ve got very high vacancies,” he said.

The situation was at its worst during the peak of Omicron in December and January, Young said.

At that time, roughly 200 out of 8,000 staff members called in sick daily — triple or quadruple the usual number of of sick calls, the doctor said. The current number of sick calls is closer to 1.5 times the normal number, he said.

Nader said the number of vacancies remains high — 14.5 per cent — and filling the positions is challenging.

Meanwhile, the bottleneck of patients stuck in hospital waiting for care elsewhere is loosening, Shared Health said.

There were 112 “alternate level of care” patients in Winnipeg hospitals on Wednesday, down from April, when the daily average was 151.

As of Thursday morning, 162 patients who’d been in Winnipeg hospitals had been repatriated to sites in their home health region this month. That has freed up space at Winnipeg inpatient units. In April, 139 patients were sent back to their home health unit.

As more staff return to their normal duties from pandemic-related assignments, and can arrange for home care and community supports, more patients can be safely discharged.

That will open up hospital beds for others, Nader said.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca