SickKids warns of ‘extremely high’ patient volumes, wait times in emergency department

The Hospital for Sick Children has issued a warning about longer than normal wait times in its emergency department.

The hospital says it’s currently experiencing “extremely high patient volumes” and a much longer than normal wait time for non-emergent issues due to viral season, staff shortages and a lack of primary care or community care.

“The most important thing is that our emergency department still takes care of the sickest children first, and so when we talk about longer wait times we’re talking about those children that have less emerging conditions who may have traditionally not come to the emergency department,” Jason Fischer, the division head of emergency medicine at SickKids, tells CityNews. “If you’re child is sick we will take care of them right away.”

Fischer says while they traditionally see between 210 to 220 children a day at this time of year, on Monday alone they treated more than 300.

“I think it’s realistic for families to expect to wait three to four times as long as we would traditionally think about, based on these higher volumes,” explains Fischer.

“Just because our volume of patient visits goes up 30 per cent doesn’t mean wait times go up 30 per cent. Unfortunately its disproportionate because our emergency department depends on lots of different services.”

SickKids says anyone going to the emergency department is being asked to come prepared with water bottles, nut-free snacks, and phone chargers.

The hospital is asking anyone considering going to emergency to check their Virtual Urgent Care platform to help determine if your child needs an ED visit or could be treated by your primary care provider.