Wait times continue to climb in emergency rooms across Hamilton, Niagara

The new year has brought old challenges to hospitals across Hamilton and Niagara as health care sites continue to grapple with capacity issues and staffing shortages.

Bhumika Gogia says she arrived at a Toronto emergency room in December unconscious and bloodied with a fractured nose after falling on ice.

She says she required immediate care but after laying on a stretcher for half an hour with no help, she left.

“I was informed that it will take a lot of time for the doctor to see me, like 4 or 5 hours,” said Gogia. “I was bleeding and the bleeding was clearly visible.”

She says days later, a specialist in Brantford pushed her bone back into place, telling her getting treated earlier would have been better.

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“That pain was terrible, it was very terrible,” she said. “What if it was a major accident?”

ER times across the area have already jumped just 11 days into the new year.

A spokesperson for Niagara Health says wait times have increased by nearly 2 hours in 2024, adding “on several occasions in recent weeks, we’ve seen a record breaking 600 plus patients a day visiting our three EDs. That’s compared to an average closer to 415.”

As of 4:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon, the waits in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls were four hours and in Welland, it was three and a half hours.

In Hamilton, a spokesperson for St. Joseph’s says hospital occupancy is at or above capacity, with a record 240 patients seeking care on Monday.

Hamilton Health Science has echoed similar sentiments, with high patient volumes in emergency departments.

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Provincial NDP leader Marit Stiles urged the Ford government to adopt three solutions at Queen’s Park on Thursday.

The first being to drop its appeal of Bill 124, which capped salary increases for public sector workers to one per cent for three years.

“Its devastated front line health care, it’s shown them deep disrespect and it is a major factor in what’s driving them out of our hospitals.” said Stiles.

The call was echoed by ER doctor and Liberal MPP for Don Valley West Adil Shamji, who was also at Queen’s Park, separately sounded the alarm about health care.

“For as long as the Ford government is trying to suppress wages and activity disrespecting health care workers we will have a major health care worker retention problem.” said Shamji.