Here's how long patients wait to see a doctor in Ottawa hospital ERs

Three Ottawa hospitals have some of the longest wait times for a first assessment in an emergency room.

Statistics from Health Quality Ontario show all five Ottawa hospital emergency rooms exceeded the provincial average for wait times for a first assessment by a doctor in June, which was 2 hours.

• Sign up now for daily CTV News Ottawa newsletters
• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

The Queensway-Carleton Hospital had the longest average wait time in Ottawa for a first assessment at 3.9 hours, tied for the longest in Ontario.

"We have one of the busiest Emergency Departments (ED) with more than 83,000 visits each year," Natasha Curley, communications officer with the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, told CTV News Ottawa.

"However, we have half the physical space and half the number of bays that other similar EDs have. We are still operating the 90+ additional temporary beds that we opened during the pandemic, including 56 off-site in a retirement residence."

The average wait time for a first assessment was 3.2 hours at the Ottawa Hospital General Campus ER, 3.1 hours at CHEO, 2.5 hours at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus and 2.2 hours at the Montfort Hospital.

The Hawkesbury and District General Hospital also reported an average wait time of 3.9 hours for a first assessment by a doctor in the ER in June.

Health Quality Ontario says the average time low-urgency patients spent in the ER without being admitted to hospital was 4.5 hours at the Civic Campus, 4.6 hours at CHEO, 4.9 hours at the Montfort Hospital, 5.1 hours at the Queensway-Carleton Hospital, and 5.6 hours at the General Campus,

Statistics show the average wait time for hospitals to be admitted to the hospital from the ER was 19 hours across Ontario in June. The target time is 8 hours.

The average wait time to be admitted from the ER to a hospital in Ottawa was 11.2 hours at CHEO, 12.7 hours at the Montfort Hospital, 14.5 hours at Queensway-Carleton Hospital, 17.5 hours at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus and 19.2 hours at the General Campus.