New data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information confirms what we have been seeing – visits to emergency departments across Canada are up.

According to the data – from April 2021 to March 2022, there were almost 14.0 million unscheduled emergency visits reported in Canada — up from more than 11.7 million in 2020–2021, the first year of the pandemic.

While these numbers are higher – it still doesn’t reach pre-pandemic volumes yet.  They totaled almost 15.1 million in 2019–2020.

As for other facts – it seems people are staying longer.

Patients admitted to hospital in 2021–2022 had longer stays compared with patients who were discharged home following a less urgent visit.

For those admitted to hospital, 9 out of 10 visits were completed within 40.7 hours – up from just over 33 hours in the previous report.

For those who were discharged, the average wait time was 7 hours.