Wait times force 1 in 3 patients to leave Winnipeg's largest ER without seeing doctor: Shared Health
CBC
While increasing wait times continue to put pressure on Manitoba's health-care system, doctors say very sick people are leaving the emergency room without being seen by a physician at all.
More than one in every three patients who recently sought medical care at the emergency department of Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre ended up leaving without seeing a doctor, according to recent data supplied by Shared Health.
"That's upsetting," Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Michael Boroditsky said when shown the data. "Obviously concerning for me as a physician and for the patients for sure even more so."
According to the data, 13.1 per cent of those seeking medical attention in 2019 left without being seen by a physician.
During that same time period in 2023 that number skyrocketed to 34.1 per cent, meaning nearly one in three patients who presented and were triaged in the emergency room left without being seen by a doctor.
"It's worrisome," Boroditsky said. "That is very troublesome."
Those same rates worsened significantly at every hospital in Winnipeg over the past five years due to staffing and patient flow.
At St. Boniface patients are leaving without seeing a doctor nearly 2.5 times more often than in 2019 and at the Grace hospital it's happening nearly four times as often.
Patients leaving emergency waiting rooms without getting treatment is a serious concern that could lead to a life-or-death situation, Boroditsky says.
"That would be my biggest concern, that someone who needed care didn't get it," he said. "We don't want to be an environment where people feel that they're rolling the dice whether they're going to be cared for."
The rate is a number doctors and health officials track closely, as it helps provide a sense of what is happening within the health-care system as a whole.
Boroditsky says right it shows the health-care system is not functioning well.
The Manitoba Nurses Union agrees, saying wait times continue to plague the system.
"Patients get angry and they just leave," MNU president Darlene Jackson said, adding long wait times can end in tragedy for patients who aren't seen fast enough.
