As for emergency department access which, for a growing number of Canadians is their front door to health care, of 16.1 million emergency room admissions in 2024/2025, two-thirds (66%) were triaged as high acuity (resuscitation, emergent or urgent) indicating life-threatening conditions or requiring medical evaluation. This includes children younger than 10; older adults 55+; and patients living in lower-income neighbourhoods. Among adults 55 and older, injuries, infections (pneumonia and urinary tract) and chronic illnesses were the predominant presenting conditions. CIHI data also confirm that, over the past seven years, high-acuity ED cases have increased from 59 to 66% of all visits, reflecting a growing need for urgent care and increasing medical services complexity among the Canadian population. In addition, elderly residents in lower-income neighbourhoods accounted for nearly half of all emergency department services. Dr. Paul Parks, Emergency Medicine Physician and past-president of the Alberta Medical Association (whose observations were included in the CIHI report) describes the environments in emergency departments across Canada: “There’s a national crisis around emergency services because we’ve optimized everything. We’ve taken all the elasticity out of the system, but the tap is still flowing. There’s a crisis: insufficient connected community resources and little continuing care and long-term care.” As the report explains, bottlenecks in the ED are created when beds are not available (or are simply plugged up) by patients waiting to access either long-term or home care. In effect, the ED serves as a sign of how the wider health system is performing. It shows where the effects of insufficient community care and delayed discharge pathways are most immediately seen, “not because the ED is the source of these pressures, but because it’s where these pressures converge in real time.” Dr. Alecs Chochinov, Head, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Manitoba adds that in large urban hospitals, it’s all about access-block and that “wait times can be horrendous.” In small rural hospitals, there are oftentimes no doctors but, when they’re open, people generally get ED treatment quickly. Canada has overflowing waiting rooms in big tertiary centres and closed hospitals with more rapid access ‒ when they’re open ‒ in rural centres.” Health CSANews | FALL 2026 | 37
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