Average wait time for walk-in clinics jumps by 31 minutes since 2022

A new report from a tech company suggests that the majority of walk-in clinics across Canada had an average wait time of 68 minutes to see a physician in 2023. That’s an increase of 31 minutes since 2022.The data comes from Medimap, a software company that walk-in clinics use to publish wait times online. The report is based on information from 1,200 walk-in clinics in the provinces that Medimap serves: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia. In 2023, people in B.C. had to wait the longest to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic, with an average 93-minute wait, followed by 72 minutes in Nova Scotia, 71 minutes in Saskatchewan, 66 minutes in Alberta, 59 minutes in Ontario and 45 minutes in Manitoba.The wait times have been steadily rising since 2019, according to Medimap’s data. In the past year, the biggest jump was seen in Ontario, where the average wait time rose from 25 minutes in 2022 to 59 minutes in 2023. Only Nova Scotia had a decrease in average wait times, from an average of 83 minutes in 2022 to 72 minutes in 2023. Since 2022, average wait times increased by:British Columbia: +14 minutesAlberta: +32 minutesSaskatchewan: +20 minutesManitoba: +14 minutesWait times differed among municipalities, as well. The longest average wait time was in North Vancouver, at 187 minutes, compared to Chilliwack, B.C., where the average wait time was 44 minutes. In Ontario, London, Hamilton, and Toronto had the longest average wait times of more than an hour, with the average wait time increasing in London and Hamilton by 57 minutes from 2022 to 2023. Brampton, Oakville and Windsor had shorter average wait times but were still more than 37 minutes long.Read: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy: Healing a ‘broken heart’ still a puzzle to be solved

Average wait time for walk-in clinics jumps by 31 minutes since 2022

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