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1 in 10 Canadians Waited 48+ Hours in the ER Last Year: How to Protect Your Family After the June 25 CIHI Report

A new Canadian Institute for Health Information report finds about 180,000 admitted Canadians spent more than 48 hours in an emergency department in 2024-25 and 1.5 million patients waited over 14 hours. Our practical guide explains when to choose the ER vs. an urgent care clinic vs. virtual care, what to pack for a long wait, how to advocate for a vulnerable family member, and the provincial alternatives to use first.

By Refdesk Team

1 in 10 Canadians Waited 48+ Hours in the ER Last Year: How to Protect Your Family After the June 25 CIHI Report

What This Means for You

If you or a family member is likely to need emergency care in the next year, the new Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) numbers released Thursday, June 25, 2026 are not just a statistic — they are a planning document. Based on our reading of the report, the average admitted Canadian patient now spends 16 hours in an emergency department before reaching a hospital bed, 1 in 10 admitted patients (roughly 180,000 people) spent more than 48 hours waiting in 2024-25, and total ER visits hit 16.1 million in the same year. The practical question is not whether wait times are bad — they are — but how you decide where to go, what to bring, and how to advocate when you arrive. Here is the playbook we recommend.

If You Are Deciding Where to Go for an Urgent (Not Life-Threatening) Problem:

The 60-second triage decision:

  • Call 911 or go directly to the ER for chest pain, signs of stroke (FAST: Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, Time to call), severe bleeding, difficulty breathing, suspected sepsis (fever plus confusion), suicidal crisis, anaphylaxis, severe head injury, or any condition where minutes matter. The 48-hour wait statistic applies to admitted patients waiting for an inpatient bed — patients in active medical crisis are seen immediately under the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) Level 1 and 2.
  • Use 811 or virtual care first for fevers, rashes, urinary symptoms, ear infections, minor cuts that may need glue, mild asthma flares, or "is this something I should worry about?" questions. Every province has a free 24/7 nurse line at 811 (HealthLink BC, HealthLine 811 Ontario, Info-Santé in Quebec, 811 in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, PEI). Triage nurses are licensed to advise you toward home care, walk-in clinics, urgent care centres, or the ER.
  • Use an urgent care centre or a walk-in clinic for minor fractures, sprains, deep cuts, eye injuries that aren't acid burns, severe migraines that aren't your "worst headache ever," and most pediatric fevers. Many urgent care centres post real-time wait times online and will be faster than the ER for CTAS Level 4 and 5 complaints.

Why this matters: The CIHI report notes that 32 per cent of ER patients now arrive with multiple medical conditions, according to CBC News coverage, which means physicians spend longer with each patient and lower-acuity cases wait longer behind them. If your problem can safely be handled in a clinic, choosing the clinic is not just kinder to the system — it is faster for you.

Resources:

If You Decide the ER Is the Right Call:

Pack a "hospital go-bag" before you leave home. Even short ER visits routinely run 6–10 hours. Pack:

  • Government-issued photo ID and your provincial health card.
  • A current medication list (prescription name, dose, time of day, prescribing doctor). Snap a photo of every pill bottle if you cannot type it up.
  • A list of allergies, surgeries, and chronic conditions, with the year of diagnosis where possible.
  • A printed or screenshot copy of recent test results, hospital discharge summaries, and imaging reports.
  • A phone charger and a portable battery pack — the wait will outlast your battery.
  • Water and a light snack (you may be told not to eat, but for caregivers and companions, food matters).
  • Reading material, a blanket or sweater, and noise-cancelling earbuds.
  • For a child: a comfort item, snacks, diapers if applicable, and the child's vaccination record.
  • For a senior: their hearing aids with spare batteries, glasses, dentures, mobility aid, and a written list of their typical baseline (e.g., "can walk to the bathroom unassisted; oriented to person, place, time").

Bring an advocate if at all possible. A second person — adult child, spouse, friend — can flag a deterioration to the triage nurse, prevent a missed medication dose, and intervene if a patient becomes confused after a long wait. Hospital policy in most provinces allows one essential care partner to remain at bedside under almost all circumstances.

At triage, speak in symptoms, not diagnoses. "Crushing pressure in the centre of my chest spreading to my left arm and jaw, sweating, started 40 minutes ago" gets a different response than "I think it's heartburn." Triage nurses use the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale and respond to specific descriptors, not euphemisms.

If You Are a Caregiver for a Senior, Disabled, or Vulnerable Family Member:

The CIHI report identifies the aging population and the rise in patients with multiple chronic conditions as primary drivers of long waits, according to coverage by CBC News and Global News. That means seniors and complex patients face the longest waits — and the largest risk of harm during them. Practical caregiver steps:

  • Pre-build an "in case of ER" packet now, before a crisis. Store it in a labelled folder on the fridge and a digital copy in a shared cloud drive. Include the medication list, advance care directive or Levels of Care document, power of attorney for personal care, list of specialists with phone numbers, and recent baseline measurements (weight, blood pressure, mobility).
  • Ask about the ALC (Alternate Level of Care) plan. Patients waiting in the ER often have nowhere to be discharged to. Hospital social workers and discharge planners can help arrange home care, rehab, or long-term-care placement. Ask "Who is the patient-flow coordinator on this unit?" within the first 12 hours of admission.
  • Push for delirium prevention. Long ER waits cause hospital-acquired delirium in older adults, sometimes permanently. Politely insist that hearing aids, glasses, and dentures stay with the patient; that the patient be repositioned every two hours; that overnight noise and light be minimized; and that the patient be encouraged to walk to the bathroom rather than use a catheter.
  • Document everything. Write down each nurse and physician's name, the time of each medication, vital signs as they are taken, and the time of any procedure. If something goes wrong, this contemporaneous record is more reliable than memory.

For All Canadians: Build a Primary-Care Backstop Now

The single best protection against a 48-hour ER wait is having somewhere else to go. Based on our analysis of the CIHI report and provincial data:

  • Register for a family doctor or nurse practitioner now. Every province has a public registry: Health Care Connect (Ontario), Health Connect Registry (BC), Quebec GAMF, Find a Doctor (Alberta), and equivalents in other provinces. Waitlists are long, but the only way off is to be on the list.
  • Get vaccinations up to date. Flu, COVID-19, RSV (for seniors and pregnant people), shingles (50+), and pneumococcal (65+) vaccines prevent the most common winter ER visits. Pharmacists in every province can administer most adult vaccines.
  • Build a home pharmacy. Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, oral rehydration solution, antihistamines, hydrocortisone cream, antibiotic ointment, gauze, a digital thermometer, a blood-pressure cuff, and a pulse oximeter cost about $150 once and resolve dozens of "should we go to the ER?" moments before they happen.
  • Confirm your provincial drug coverage. A surprising number of ER visits stem from skipped medications. If cost is a barrier, the Ontario Drug Benefit (65+), Trillium Drug Program, BC PharmaCare, RAMQ Public Prescription Drug Insurance Plan (Quebec), and Alberta Coverage for Seniors all reduce or eliminate out-of-pocket prescription costs for eligible residents.

The News: What Happened

According to a report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information on Thursday, June 25, 2026, one in 10 patients — roughly 180,000 Canadians — admitted to a hospital through an emergency department in the 2024-25 fiscal year spent more than 48 hours waiting for an inpatient bed. CBC News reports that this is the same threshold the 90th percentile of admitted patients crossed in 2024-25, up from 36 hours in the 2018-19 fiscal year — a 12-hour increase over six years.

Global News, citing the CIHI release, reports that half of admitted patients spent more than 16 hours in the emergency department before receiving a hospital bed in 2024-25. According to CIHI's National Ambulatory Care Reporting System data, there were 16.1 million unscheduled emergency department visits across reporting provinces in 2024-25, up from approximately 15.5 million the previous year. About 12 per cent of those visits resulted in a hospital admission.

According to CBC News, 1.5 million Canadians — roughly 10 per cent of all ED patients — spent more than 14 hours in an emergency department in 2024-25, a 28 per cent increase from 2018-19. CIHI identified three primary causes: limited emergency-department capacity, difficulty accessing primary and community care, and the country's aging population. According to coverage by Global News and CBC News, 32 per cent of patients now present with multiple medical conditions, which extends the time clinicians spend on each case.

A Windsor, Ontario family told CBC News that an elderly relative who fell at home waited more than 48 hours in the emergency department, with part of the wait taking place on a hallway stretcher. CIHI noted in its release that many emergency departments are "facing challenges with overcrowding, staffing shortages, and limited bed and stretcher capacity that have not kept pace with growing demand."

Analysis: Why This Matters

Based on our analysis of the CIHI data and provincial health-system reporting, the 48-hour benchmark is not a one-province anomaly. CIHI's coverage is robust in Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Yukon and partial but meaningful in British Columbia (76 per cent of visits), Manitoba (75 per cent), Prince Edward Island (73 per cent) and Nova Scotia (57 per cent), according to the agency's methodology notes. The pattern of rising waits is national.

The 12-hour increase in the 90th-percentile wait between 2018-19 and 2024-25 is the single most important number in the report. It tells us the system has not absorbed the post-pandemic rebound in demand. ER volume is up 4 per cent year over year, the share of complex patients is up, and inpatient capacity has not grown proportionally. The result is "boarding" — admitted patients holding in the ED because there is no bed upstairs — which is the dominant driver of the 48-hour figure.

Historical Context

Canada's ER wait times have been a federal-provincial tension point since the 2004 First Ministers' Accord on Health Care Renewal first promised national wait-time benchmarks. The 2018-19 baseline cited by CIHI was already considered a problem; the 2024-25 numbers represent a clear regression. Provincial responses have varied: Ontario expanded its Health Connect Ontario nurse line and added thousands of acute-care beds, British Columbia opened Urgent and Primary Care Centres, and Quebec launched the Guichet d'accès à la première ligne. None of these has reversed the underlying trend.

What Happens Next

Based on our analysis, the next 12 months are likely to focus on three policy levers: expanding home care and long-term-care capacity to free up "alternate level of care" beds (which often account for 15 to 20 per cent of acute-care occupancy); growing the family-physician and nurse-practitioner workforce to reduce ER use for primary-care-treatable complaints; and standardizing virtual-care triage. Federal Health Minister statements through 2026 have emphasized bilateral agreements with provinces, but the daily reality for patients will likely continue to be shaped by where you live, who your primary-care provider is, and whether you know how to navigate the alternatives outlined above.

Your Action Plan

Immediate (This Week):

  • Save 811 (or your province's equivalent) in your phone contacts under "Nurse Hotline."
  • Locate the nearest urgent care centre and walk-in clinic to your home and work; note their hours.
  • Build a "hospital go-bag" with ID, health card, medication list, charger, and a sweater.
  • Confirm an emergency contact and a backup advocate for every family member.

Short-term (This Month):

  • Register on the family-doctor waitlist for your province if you do not have a primary-care provider.
  • Schedule a medication review with your pharmacist (free under most provincial plans).
  • Update or create a personal medical summary (one page, in your wallet).
  • If you are a caregiver, draft an advance care directive and discuss it with the patient.

Long-term (This Year):

  • Get current with adult vaccinations (flu, COVID-19, shingles 50+, pneumococcal 65+, RSV for seniors).
  • Build the home pharmacy listed above.
  • If you are 75+ or care for someone who is, complete a power of attorney for personal care.
  • Subscribe to provincial health-ministry updates so you learn about new urgent-care centres in your area.

Other Perspectives

Canadian Institute for Health Information:

According to CIHI's release, emergency departments across Canada are "facing challenges with overcrowding, staffing shortages, and limited bed and stretcher capacity that have not kept pace with growing demand." The agency frames the data as a system-wide capacity problem, not a problem of individual hospital performance.

Frontline Clinicians and Patient Advocates:

CBC News quoted family members describing relatives waiting more than 48 hours, including in hallways. The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians has historically attributed long waits to a shortage of inpatient and long-term-care beds, not to triage decisions in the ER itself.

Provincial Governments:

Provincial health ministries have generally argued that targeted investments — bed expansions, urgent care centres, virtual-care partnerships — are beginning to take effect but require time to show in CIHI data. They also point to demographic trends and post-pandemic staffing as constraints beyond a single budget cycle.

Patients and Caregivers:

For patients and their families, the report confirms what many have experienced firsthand. Patient-advocacy organizations such as Patients for Patient Safety Canada have called for transparent, hospital-level wait-time reporting and for guaranteed access to a designated essential-care partner during ED stays.

Note: Including multiple perspectives doesn't imply all views are equally valid, but ensures readers can make informed judgments.

Corrections Policy

We strive for accuracy. If you find an error in this analysis, please email us at [email protected]. We will promptly investigate and correct any factual inaccuracies.

Updates:

  • No corrections to date (as of June 26, 2026)

Sources