THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Regional Health Science Centre is advising patients with less serious illnesses like the common cold to avoid the emergency department.
The hospital’s emergency department saw an increase of 800 more patients last month which led to a full waiting room on occasion and longer stays than usual for patients with less urgent medical issues, according to Adam Vinet, vice-president of patient experience.
“As we work through our respiratory illness season, we're seeing an increase in patients coming through the emerge,” said Vinet.
He said that longer patient wait times are different every day, but “we always look after the patients that are sickest first and they get treatment first, and the less urgent patients sometimes have a longer wait.”
Even those who arrive at the hospital by ambulance will not necessarily get seen faster.
Vinet suggests that members of the public with minor ailments go to their primary care physicians, urgent care clinics, and walk-in or virtual clinics.
211 Ontario maintains a regularly updated list of walk-in clinics in the city.
The The North West Virtual Care Clinic is a nurse practitioner-led online clinic that works with local healthcare providers to help patients gain access to faster care.
People can also seek health-related advice from a registered nurse by calling Health Connect Ontario by calling 811 or go online and search for Health811 is a search tool to help find doctors, nurse practitioners, specialists, and health services.
