Like every year, emergency rooms in Outaouais are overflowing after the holiday season. But this time, the increase in the waiting time seems particularly marked.
Where memories come from
says the head of the emergency department at the Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of Outaouais, Dr. Christal Dionne.
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Dr. Christal Dionne at the Gatineau Hospital (Archive photo)
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As of January 13, 2025, the average response time in Outaouais emergencies is 4 hours and 26 minutes. That’s about an hour more than in 2024, according to the Quebec government’s dashboard.
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Source: Quebec government dashboard, Performance of the health and social services network
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We are simply overflowing in the emergency room, all our stretchers are occupied
describes Dr. Dionne.
According to her, this increase is explained by more respiratory viruses or cases of gastroenteritis.
Inevitably, patients who are sicker have to wait longer on a stretcher to see a doctor
at this time of year, explains the president of the Association of General Practitioners of Western Quebec (AMOOQ), Guillaume Charbonneau.
Emergency, the only way in?
The director of Action Santé Outaouais, Mathieu Charbonneau, would like to see certain health problems treated in other health establishments, such as family medicine groups (GMF) or local community service centers (CLSC).
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Mathieu Charbonneau is the director of Action Santé Outaouais. (Archive photo)
-Photo: - / Anne-Charlotte Carignan
Reform after reform, we put in place measures that are very similar, centralization, privatization, but also a significant emphasis on the hospital
he believes.
Our health system, we can say, is “hospital-centric”.
According to him, there are few solutions offered to patients to prevent the emergency room from being their entry point into the health network. Even some patients with a family doctor are unable to have an appointment at short notice, according to him. Imagine the people who don’t have one
he depicts.
What to do before going to the emergency room
On its website, the CISSS de l’Outaouais recommends that the population seek advice from their pharmacist, call 811 and consult their self-care guides for the flu and gastroenteritis.
GAP, the recommended option according to a doctor
Even if the situation is very difficult
it is not necessarily more so than in recent years, believes for his part Guillaume Charbonneau, president of theAMOOQ.
We still have [options] more interesting [que] the emergency
for the last few years, he said. Guillaume Charbonneau recommends that patients call the First Line Access Desk (GAP) at 811 option 3.
There is certainly room for improvement, but this is probably the greatest innovation of the last 10 years for health access in Quebec.
According to him, we will have to become familiar with this solution in the coming years. More and more people do not have access to a family doctor and the situation is not likely to improve.
For most cases of gastroenteritis or respiratory viruses, we just don’t need to show up anywhere
.
A shortage of family doctors is shared between the regions
he explains. And unfortunately, the situation is getting worse.
It is therefore important, according to him, to use the few available resources efficiently.
With information from Daniel Bouchard
