Wait times at walk-in clinics on the rise, data suggests

Wait times at walk-in clinics are on the rise, according to data from Medimap.

The website which operates in six provinces, including Nova Scotia, allows patients to see how long the wait is at various clinics in their community.

“[Clinics] download our platform and they update their wait-time every couple of hours. We then average that across the clinic, we average that across the city and we average that across the province,” explained Teddy Wickland, the company's vice-president of operations.

“The data is showing us that year-over-year, since we first started doing this report in 2019 pre-pandemic, wait-times have been increasing.”

In 2021, Canadians in those six provinces had an average wait of 25 minutes to see a medical health professional. That went up 12 to 37 minutes in 2022.

And it appear the wait is much longer here. Medimap says the time spent in a waiting room went up 39 minutes in 2022 to an average of 83 minutes in Nova Scotia, the longest of any province using the service.

British Columbia had the second longest wait last year with an average of 79 minutes.

Wickland believes there are a few reasons the numbers are going up, including how many clinics are operating and where they're located.

“But the main factor is there are too few doctors for the amount of patients that are seeking care right now,” he told CityNews Halifax.

He said provinces, including ours, are taking steps to improve the situation, including establishing pharmacy-led primary care clinics, licensing foreign-trained doctors and expanding virtual care options.

“But there really isn't a quick fix” Wickland said.

“Unfortunately, all of these things are going to take months to implement and probably years before we really feel the impact.”