Manitoba hospitals still face the problem of too long emergency department wait times, it is the second long in the country.
Despite the fact that there are several changes to deal with the problem, it still remains very long, according to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
Chief Operating Officer of the WRHA, Lori Lamont, explained that Manitoba made great improvements to decrease wait times but still they are not enough to change the situation in general. The province has where to go to get out of the bottom of the list.
The statistics are taken from April 2017 to March 2018. They show that the wait times changed from 5.1 to 4.4 hours, so it decreased by 13% compared to previous periods. The national average is 3.2 hours. Manitoba is trying to strive for this indicator but at the moment more than 10% of patients complained that they had to wait for the doctor for more than 4.5 hours after arriving and being registered at the emergency department.
During the previous changes, the Emergency Department at the Victoria General Hospital became an urgent care centre, and the same centre at Misericordia was closed. These changes led to wait times increase at Seven Oaks.
In the near future, the next stage to improve the quality of services in medical institutions of the province will begin: the ER at Concordia Hospital will be closed and ER in Seven Oaks will be transformed into an urgent care facility.
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