Wait times in Canadian hospitals

Plan on waiting at least 9 hours to get in and 24 hours to be admitting, in a medical EMERGENCY. 

Patients are also facing long delays when they go the emergency department, the WTA said, waiting an average of nine hours to be seen and treated and for patients who needed to be admitted, the average wait time was nearly 24 hours.

"The longer wait for patients to be admitted is often due to the inability to find an available hospital inpatient bed," the WTA said.

Wait times for psychiatric care are also well beyond the maximum wait-time benchmark of four weeks, the study said. Patients with major depression are waiting almost six weeks to start treatment with a psychiatrist.

And for surgery:

The Vancouver-based, right-wing think-tank's annual hospital waiting list survey concluded that median wait time for Canadians seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment dropped to 17.3 weeks in 2008 from 18.3 weeks in 2007.