B.C. walk-in clinic wait times among longest in Canada in 2022: report

It appears pressure on the health care system in B.C. is not waning, as a new index finds clinic wait times in the province were among the longest in the country last year.

Medimap says its latest report finds B.C. wait times to see a doctor were, on average, second longest in 2022, just behind Nova Scotia. The average wait was 79 minutes compared to 83 minutes, respectively.

The report looked at the provinces Medimap currently operates in: B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Nova Scotia.

“On average, British Columbians had to wait more than triple the amount of time (79 minutes) to see a physician at a walk-in clinic, compared to Ontarians who waited an average of 25 minutes,” the health-tech company’s report reads, noting people in Ontario saw the lowest wait times across the country.

Medimap Vice President of Operations Teddy Wickland explains there simply aren’t enough doctors to meet demand.

“Times were bad before the pandemic, this was already something that was happening, but they weren’t as bad as they are today,” he said. “But they were bad and then the pandemic really exacerbated the wait times. What we’ve seen both in our data, but then also anecdotally we’ve heard from practitioners, is the last couple of years were hard for doctors.”

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In B.C., the average wait for a doctor at a walk-in clinic was 21 minutes longer than waits were in 2021, and 38 minutes longer than in 2019.

Meanwhile, four of the top 10 cities with the longest wait times last year were in B.C., with North Vancouver and Victoria first and second at 160 minutes and 137 minutes, respectively.

“Approximately 70 percent of walk-in clinics across Canada use Medimap to share their wait times,” Medimap explains online.

The latest report comes after Medimap reported in December that B.C. walk-in clinic wait times were the longest Canada-wide. At the time, the company said seven of the 10 top cities were in the province, with Sidney on Vancouver Island averaging waits of three hours.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said the province was taking action on the issue, pointing to new urgent and primary care centres introduced since the NDP formed government.

Medimap, which provides wait times and physician availability details to the public, says the average wait time in the province in 2022 was 79 minutes — more than double the national average of 37 minutes. (Medimap)

However, a family doctor in B.C. isn’t surprised by Medimap’s findings.

“Patients right, rightly or wrongly, don’t want to clog up the emergency room system. The only option they have are the walk-in clinics, so the wait times will become quite significant,” Dr. Anna Wolak told CityNews.

Wolack understands wait times are stressful for patients, and doctors, alike.

“There are fewer family physicians, there are fewer physicians who would also be doing walk-ins so there are walking clinics that are closing because of lack of doctors and we’ve always heard stories about people who’ve put signs on the door saying we can’t open today because we don’t have a doctor,” she explained.

Many physicians in the province have also stopped practicing, Wolak notes, exacerbating the already overloaded system.

“With more people coming in, we’ve seen lineups from people lining up from like five or six o’clock in the morning for an 8 a.m. start, and by 8:30 the clinic will have registered the quota for the day, because each doctor does have a quota of how many patients they can see in a day,” she said.

The findings from Medimap come as the federal government announced Tuesday a new health-care funding offer that would see Ottawa shift $196 billion to the provinces and territories over the next 10 years in exchange for commitments to massively upgrade health-care data collection and digital medical records.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians cherish their public health-care system but need it to work better.

“We all have to recognize it hasn’t been delivering at the level that Canadians would expect,” he said.