The average amount of time Pontiac Hospital emergency room (ER) patients waited on stretchers before being moved to a hospital bed more than doubled in the past year, according to new data provided by Outaouais healthcare authority CISSSO.
The numbers show that while the average wait time for all patients seeking care at the hospital’s ER has increased from four hours and forty-nine minutes to just over six hours, staying within its five-year average for total wait times, the wait times for patients who arrive at the ER and need to be admitted for further care have increased from an average of seven hours in 2023-2024 to 17 hours in 2024-2025.
Also of note is that the percentage of stretcher stays exceeding 48 hours has increased from 1.5 per cent to 6.2 per cent over the same period.
“They’re waiting 17 hours before they’re admitted into a hospital bed, so they’re lying on a stretcher, knowing they’re going to be staying in hospital,” explained CISSSO’s Pontiac director Nicole Boucher-Larivière.
She explained nearly half of the hospital’s acute care beds are being used by patients who should be in a long-term care home. She said the shortage of long-term care beds in the region means these people are being cared for at the Pontiac Hospital, sometimes for several months, until a bed opens up.
“They’re in a regular hospital bed because they can’t go home, there’s nobody to care for them or they require too much care, but they don’t require hospital services,” Boucher-Larivière said. “So they remain in a hospital bed on the floor and then when we need to admit somebody from the ER, I don’t have an available bed.”
Last week Le Droit reported on numbers first published by La Presse that showed the Pontiac Hospital ER was the only one across the Outaouais that saw any increase in stretcher wait times. The Hull hospital brought its average stretcher wait time down to 23.5 hours from 24 hours, and the Gatineau hospital down to 24 hours from almost 26.5 hours.
While average stretcher wait times in the Pontiac were lower last year, at around six hours per patient, the 2022-2023 year saw an average of 14 hours per patient. Boucher-Larivière said some years see higher turnover in long-term care homes, making it possible for new residents to occupy the beds, but that this year has been challenging.
“I think the aging population is catching up to us,” she said. “There’s been a lot less beds available, so it backlogs at the hospital.”
She explained the region is missing 500 long-term care beds, in part because of the closure of several private homes in the Pontiac during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has lower beds per capita than most other regions of the province, something the health network has been pushing to rectify.
Beyond the lack of long-term care beds, Boucher-Larivière said the increase in non-Pontiac patients visiting the hospital’s ER is also adding to stretcher wait times.
“I’d say that more than half of my visits at the Shawville hospital are from people from outside the Pontiac,” she said. “Some of these people are of course ending up on the stretcher and contributing to longer wait times.”
She also pointed to the significant increase in patients being seen at the Pontiac Hospital ER – from 527 patients in 2021 to 935 in 2024 – as contributing to the longer stretcher stays.
Jean Pigeon, founder and spokesperson for healthcare advocacy group SOS Outaouais, said beyond the challenges highlight by Boucher-Larivière, the chronic underfunding of the region’s healthcare network compared to other regions is a problem.
“[It] continues to impact our ability to recruit and retain staff, invest in infrastructure, and expand services. These structural challenges exacerbate wait times and limit the flexibility of local hospitals to respond to fluctuations in demand,” Pigeon told THE EQUITY.
“To open up more long-term care beds in the Outaouais and specifically in the Pontiac, the province must accelerate the deployment of promised investments, prioritize regions like ours that have been historically under-resourced, and ensure that new facilities are adapted to the specific demographic and geographic realities of rural communities. It’s not just about building new spaces; it’s about providing adequate staffing, operational funding, and community support to sustain them over time.”
