The province’s emergency rooms remain “under pressure”, due to the influx of patients with flu-like symptoms such as nasal congestion, cough and fever, Santé Québec said on Friday.
Currently, the peak of the flu season has not been reached, argued Frédéric Abergel, executive vice-president of operations and transformation at Santé Québec, at a press conference in Montreal. “By the end of January and beginning of February, we will enter more critical weeks in terms of the number of people who have flu symptoms and who will present themselves to the emergency room. »
For a second consecutive week, the new state-owned company took stock of hospital traffic. On January 10, the agency announced that the situation in emergencies was “better” than last year, even if it remained imperfect.
Mr. Abergel underlined this Friday that for the period from December 31 to January 13, the occupancy rate of stretchers saw a slight drop this year compared to last year. It went from 126% in 2023-2024 to 121% in 2024-2025.
-As for the average length of stay on a stretcher for this same period, it was 20.1 hours last year and is now at 18.6 hours this year.
Further details will follow.
