Wait times at hospital emergency rooms appear to have gone down, according to the latest rankings compiled by La Presse.
Quebecers are waiting an average of just under two hours less in the ER compared to last year.
But you're still waiting about 14 hours to be treated by a doctor in the ER.
Some of the hospitals with shorter ER wait times: Jewish General, Lakeshore General and Cité de la Santé in Laval.
Among the worst: Royal Victoria Hospital and Lachine General.
Pierre-Boucher Hospital in Longueuil ranks the worst in the province with an average wait time of 23 hours.
Amy Ma, co-chair of the MUHC patients committee, said she is skeptical about the so-called improved ER wait times. Ma said it's a bit of a shell game.
"If there hasn't been a radical change at the hospital or in the community, then those people must still be waiting somewhere, they're just not physically in the ER so it's a perception issue," said Ma in an interview with CJAD 800.
Ma said the solution is more community-based care.
"They're counting the people going in, but then are they keeping track of when they really got their care regardless of where they were being warehoused or not? How long that time was? I think that's the real question," said Ma.
The Association des médecins d'urgence du Québec representing emergency room physicians told La Presse that the improvements come at the expense of staff who end up being stressed and overworked.
"I guess that becomes an issue of patient safety. I wouldn't want to be treated by a doctor on the verge of burnout. That's not good for me, that's not good for the doctor," said Ma.
The rankings take four factors in consideration:
- the average time spent in the ER
- the percentage of time spent in the ER that was 48 hours or more
- the percentage of people 75 and older who checked in
- the percentage of cases on stretchers that required hospitalization.
Click here for the La Presse rankings.