CAMPBELL RIVER, BC: Island Health launched a new website last week displaying estimated wait times at all emergency departments within the health authority, however North Island MLA and Conservative health critic Anna Kindy is flagging issues with the system’s methodology.
Island Health’s figures are based on eight-week averages, not real-time updates.
“In a modern, functional universal health care system, people should know accurate ER wait times. This isn’t just about putting a number on the screen,” said Kindy.
“Averages can have big ranges. You could go in thinking the average is four hours but actually you are in for an eight-hour wait. Basing the data off of eight-week averages is a faulty, flawed mechanism that can’t account for instances like car accidents, heat waves, or mass street drug poisonings.”
“The Fraser and Vancouver Coastal Health authorities have already been posting ER wait times online for years. Vancouver Coastal updates their data every five to 10 minutes and indicates an upward or downward trend. It took Island Health far too long to develop a system, and it wasn’t ultimately done right,” said Kindy.
Kindy is calling for Island Health to revise their wait time methodology based on real-time conditions, and for Interior Health and Northern Health to roll out their own online real-time wait time dashboards by the end of summer 2025.
“What we have to remember through all this is patients are continuing to fall through the cracks and they’re not getting the care they need,” said Kindy.
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Media Contact:
Lindsay Shepherd
Communications Officer
Lindsay.Shepherd@leg.bc.ca
