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Vancouver has 4th longest average walk-in clinic waits in Lower Mainland

Medimap, a free mobile app that allows patients to get alerts about wait times at local clinics, created an index of wait times across Canada and found that British Columbians experience some of the longest average wait times (50 minutes).
Elana Shepert
Elana Shepert
waiting-room-lineup-vancouver
Vancouver has the fifth longest walk-in clinic waits in the province. Photo: Doctor's office lineup

Do you find that you have to wait an extremely long time to see a walk-in doctor?

Medimap, a free mobile app that allows patients to get alerts about wait times at local clinics, created an index of wait times across Canada and found that British Columbians experience some of the longest average wait times (50 minutes). In contrast, Albertans experience some of the shortest wait times, with an average of 23 minutes. 

The Medimap Index of walk-in clinic wait times found that of the top 10 cities in Canada with the longest wait times, seven are in B.C. What's more, four of the top ten are located on Vancouver Island. Of the top five cities with the highest wait times in the Lower Mainland, Maple Ridge came in at number one (91 minutes), Vancouver came in at number four (53 minutes), and two of the Tri-Cities made the top five list.

At three hours, Vancouver's Island's Sidney had the highest average wait time. Langford (117 mintues) had the second longest wait, and Victoria (92 minutes) had the third. 

Report authors note that while provincial average wait times are shorter in Alberta and Ontario, there are still communities with much higher waits. For example, Kingston, Ontario is averaging wait times of 77 minutes, while Morinville, Alberta is experiencing average wait times of 91 minutes.

Cities with the longest average wait times across the Lower Mainland:

  1. Maple Ridge (91 minutes)
  2. Pitt Meadows (75 minutes)
  3. Coquitlam (58 minutes)
  4. Vancouver (53 minutes)
  5. Port Moody (52 minutes)

Cities with the longest average wait times in six provines: 

  1. Sidney, B.C. (180 minutes)
  2. Langford, B.C. (117 minutes)
  3. Victoria, B.C. (92 minutes)
  4. Morinville, AB (91 minutes)
  5. Maple Ridge, B.C. (91 minutes)
  6. Halifax, N.S. (91 minutes)
  7. Nanaimo, B.C. (82 minutes)
  8. Williams Lake, B.C. (80 minutes)
  9. Kingston, ON (77 minutes)
  10. Pitt Meadows, B.C. (75 minutes) 

According to the Commonwealth Fund Report, Canada’s health-care system ranks amongst the lowest performing countries in relation to access to care, placing third-last in the developed world. “Many Canadians don’t have access to a family doctor and, for those who do, it can often take weeks to get an appointment. Your health needs can’t always wait, which is where walk-in clinics fill an important gap in our health care system,” said Blake Adam, CEO and Founder of Medimap. “Medimap is free and accessible to anyone who needs it across Canada.” 

The B.C.-based company, which provides wait times for about 80 per cent of the province’s walk-in clinics, gathered statistics on wait times from Nov. 1, 2018, to Oct. 31, 2019. 

- With files from the Times Colonist.