City walk-in clinics have among the highest increase in wait times in country
City ranked below only Toronto and London as lack of primary care options hits home
Wait times at Hamilton walk-in clinics went up more than sixfold in one year — one of the largest increases across the country.
The tech company that tracks the data says the surge in 2023 is significant because it’s a “barometer” of the system as a whole.
“It serves as an early warning,” said Thomas Jankowski, CEO of Medimap, a tech company that matches patients with walk-in clinics and other health professionals. “When we talk about the healthcare system being in crisis, it is not an exaggeration. It’s very much a reality that’s only going to get worse.”
Medimap found waits at Canada’s walk-in clinics went up across the country but Hamilton was second only to North Vancouver for the biggest jump in 2023 compared to the year before.
During that time, the average wait to see a physician at Hamilton walk-in clinics soared to 68 minutes from 11 minutes.
As a result, Hamilton now has the third-highest wait in Ontario behind Toronto and London.
“We’ve seen in general all across Canada, a much higher than before rise in the metro areas,” said Jankowski.
He says Hamilton walk-in clinics were hit particularly hard partly because of an influx of residents from the Greater Toronto Area who came for cheaper housing but couldn’t find a family doctor once they got here.
Newcomers have also struggled to find primary care, which can be seen in the rise in the use of walk-in clinics in metropolitan areas, said Jankowski.
Overall, a growing shortage of family doctors is driving the rising waits at Canadian walk-in clinics, which Medimap reports increased to 68 minutes on average to see a physician in 2023 from 37 minutes in 2022. In Ontario, the average wait to see a doctor was 59 minutes last year, up from 25 minutes the year before.
“Doctors are disappearing left, right and centre,” said Jankowski. “You’ve got this massive issue on the supply side.”
The Ontario Medical Association put out a warning in February that 2.3 million Ontarians have no family doctor and the shortage is now in every region of the province. The association estimates Ontario is short more than 2,500 family doctors and flagged that physicians are increasingly considering leaving their practices.
“We’ve got doctors getting burnt out much faster than before, and they’re leaving the system completely,” said Jankowski. “At the same time, you don’t have young doctors wanting to go into family practice.”
The shortage is exacerbated by many doctors hitting retirement age as others are retiring earlier than their predecessors.
At the same time the population is aging — Hamilton now has more seniors than children and youth for the first time in the city’s history — and with that comes more complex health needs.
“Demand is at its peak and supply is at its lowest,” said Jankowski. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”
About 70 per cent of walk-in clinics across Canada use Medimap to share their wait times and the hope is that the report will be a wake-up call to spur action.
One solution Jankowski suggests is provinces making it possible for nurse practitioners to open up walk-in clinics. It’s an issue in Hamilton, where a primary-care clinic led by nurse practitioners is charging patients for services — that would normally be covered by OHIP — because they have no ability to bill the provincial insurance plan.
“I see these numbers get much worse from 2022 to 2023 at walk-in clinics … and early 2024 data is looking even worse. We can’t just duck or heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. We need to make a lot of changes.”