From today's Toronto Star.............

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1126692246937&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home

More than half the visits to Canadian hospital emergency rooms are by patients seeking care for less-urgent or non-urgent conditions that often could be dealt with elsewhere, a report released today says.
In fact, less than one per cent of patients visiting emergency departments are considered severely ill and in need of life-saving treatment, said the report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
"We found that over half of patients visiting emergency departments were there for less-urgent or non-urgent conditions, things like chronic back pain or a sore throat," said Jennifer Zelmer, CIHI's vice-president of research and analysis.
"Whereas at the other extreme, less than one per cent who visited emergency rooms were most severely ill — people with diagnoses of shock or major trauma."
The CIHI study, using data collected from 2003-2004, is the first of three by the agency looking at why and when Canadians go to hospital ERs. Most of the data came from Ontario hospitals, but they were also collected from centres in Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island.
What Canadians care most about is how long they will have to wait to see a doctor — and stories are rife about people spending hours cooling their heels in ER waiting rooms before hearing their names called.
"One thing that's important to remember is that these are individual patients — your son or daughter who went to an emergency with a broken arm or your grandma who ended up there with a heart condition," Zelmer said.
"We do see in the data that some people are treated very quickly," she said. "On the other hand, there are those who are waiting nearly three hours or more."
While the report found that one in 10 Canadians indeed waited three hours or more, half of all emergency room patients were seen by a doctor within a maximum of 51 minutes. Another 10 per cent waited 10 minutes or less.
Wait times varied by the severity of the patient's condition. Those patients considered the most urgent waited the shortest time on average, with half seeing a doctor within five minutes.
However, 10 per cent of the most severely ill patients — with such conditions as major trauma, shock or severe respiratory distress — waited 45 minutes or more.
The findings differ somewhat from those of a 2004 international survey, in which nearly half of Canadians polled said they waited two or more hours to see a doctor on their last visit to an emergency department compared to only 36 per cent in the United Kingdom, 34 per cent in the United States, 29 per cent in Australia and 27 per cent in New Zealand.
That may be because Canadians are relatively big users of emergency departments, compared with some other countries. The international survey showed that almost four in 10 Canadians reported having been to an emergency department in the previous two years.
Americans were close behind, at 34 per cent, while the figure was about 30 per cent in Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.
Overall, Canadians make more than 14 million visits each year to emergency departments, a number that has remained relatively stable in the last four years.
Visits to emergency occur most often between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., with 11 a.m. recorded as the peak arrival time, the report showed. The least busy time was 6 a.m., although children's hospitals reported rush hours between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.
"For kids, there's a second peak in the evening, perhaps because parents are getting home, doing that last check before bed," Zelmer said.
What time of day people arrived at an emergency department seemed to be a factor in how long their visit lasted. Those who arrived in the busy morning tended to have shorter stays than those who arrived in the afternoon or early evening, perhaps reflecting an influx of emergency department and hospital staff in the morning.
The 2003-2004 study also found:
— Patients tend to wait longer in higher-volume ERs. In community hospitals with more than 30,000 emergency visits per year, the median wait to see a doctor ranged from six to 70 minutes, depending on the severity of the case. In ERs with less than 15,000 visits a year, median wait times ranged from one to 25 minutes.
— Nearly half of ER patients were discharged in two hours or less; 10 per cent were out in 36 minutes or less, but another 10 per cent spent more than six hours in emergency.
— Patients in rural areas are more likely to use ERs for non-emergency care. For example, five per cent of visits in Toronto-Central (urban) were triaged as non-urgent, while 16 per cent in North Simcoe Muskoka (rural) fell into this category.
— More than 80 per cent of patients were discharged; only 11 per cent needed to be admitted.
— Adults accounted for the largest number of emergency department visits in 2003-2004, with 62 per cent of patients aged 16 to 64. However, Ontario children four and under were more likely to visit an emergency department than any other age group (36 per cent). Rates were highest for those under a year old.
— 13 per cent of Canadians surveyed said their most recent contact with a health-care provider or treatment for their most recent injury had been in an emergency room. Only the Yukon and New Brunswick had significantly higher rates (almost 20 per cent). Nunavut had the lowest rate at 10 per cent.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information is an independent, non-profit organization working to improve the health of Canadians through health information.

so health services are very lousy in canada.

oopps its crewnshew's post .
he will again say i am validating my reasons to leave canada.

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Orginally posted by ptm
so health services are very lousy in canada.

oopps its crewnshew's post .
he will again say i am validating my reasons to leave canada.

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yeah, crenshew ,
my comprehension power is very limited since i am not as highly qualified as you and i has not spend so much time in canada like you otherwise my comprehension power could have been better.

BADE BHAI KABHI GHAMAND NAHIN KARNA CHAHIA. TUM TO KYA CHEEJ HO GHAMAND TO RAVAN KA BHI NAHIN RAHA AUR USE LE DUBA.


ptm

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Orginally posted by ptm

yeah, crenshew ,
my comprehension power is very limited since i am not as highly qualified as you and i has not spend so much time in canada like you otherwise my comprehension power could have been better.

BADE BHAI KABHI GHAMAND NAHIN KARNA CHAHIA. TUM TO KYA CHEEJ HO GHAMAND TO RAVAN KA BHI NAHIN RAHA AUR USE LE DUBA.

ptm

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Orginally posted by crenshaw
c. You’re somewhere in the Western hemisphere, probably Toronto.

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"Mah deah, there is much more money to be made in the destruction of civilization than in building it up."

-- Rhett Butler in "Gone with the Wind"

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ptm