Latest news with #KrystleWittevrongel
CTV News
6 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Alberta ER visits averaged nearly 4 hours last year, report finds
The entrance to the emergency department at Peter Lougheed hospital is pictured in, Calgary, Alta., Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh Patients in Alberta's emergency rooms spent a median time of three hours and 48 minutes per visit last year. That's from a new report by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) that shows wait times in the emergency room have not improved over the past year and have become worse over the last five years. The median length of stay, which is from arrival to discharge, or admission has increased by 54 minutes in Alberta over the past five years. Krystle Wittevrongel, director of research at the MEI, says that Alberta is faring better than some other provinces. 'Despite the fact that Alberta performs better than most Canadian provinces, patients shouldn't be satisfied,' she said. 'They're still faced with wait times that are abnormal in many developed countries, and it remains important to understand that, even within the province, wait times can vary tremendously.' The longest median emergency room stays in Alberta were in the Edmonton region at five hours and 54 minutes and the Calgary region at four hours and 42 minutes. But it was the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton that had the longest median visits provincially at eight hours and 30 minutes. Two other Edmonton hospitals rounded out the top three worst. Wittevrongel says that one Maritime province faired the best when it came to wait times. Newfoundland and Labrador reported the shortest median stay at two hours and 45 minutes, while Quebec had the longest at five hours and 23 minutes. 'In all the provinces, wait times are worse today than they were five years ago, a clear sign that our health-care systems are struggling to provide their patients with timely access to care,' said Wittevrongel. MEI submitted freedom of information requests to each province seeking information on wait times. Data for Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia was not available. The full MEI publication can be accessed online.
Calgary Herald
6 days ago
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Alberta shows a lack of improvement when it comes to emergency room wait times: report
An Alberta Health Services building on 107 Street in Downtown Edmonton on Feb. 27, 2025. Photo by Shaughn Butts / Postmedia Alberta's emergency room wait times are just as long as they were last year for the median patient, according to a new report by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI). THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Calgary Herald ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Calgary Herald ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors The median Albertan spent three hours and 48 minutes in the emergency room in 2024 — an increase of 54 minutes since 2020. According to the report, the Edmonton region had the highest median wait time at five hours and 54 minutes, followed by the Calgary region at four hours and 42 minutes. Krystle Wittevrongel, the institute's director of research, said over the past five years all 10 provinces have seen an increase in wait times. Your weekday lunchtime roundup of curated links, news highlights, analysis and features. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again 'Alberta didn't increase much from last year, but compared to the beginning of the five-year period, there was an increase of 54 minutes compared to the beginning of the period (2020), but it was zero minutes from last year. So we don't have much change, but it's hard to look at it just from one year's perspective,' Wittevrongel said. MEI obtained the data through freedom of information requests from all 10 provinces for the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Wittevrongel said despite getting both the average and median wait times, they chose to go with the median statistic since it was a better indicator when accounting for extreme outliers where some people may wait for very little or a long time, which can skew the average. This means 50 per cent of patients wait longer and 50 per cent wait less time than the median. When creating the report, Wittevrongel said her team looked at the time when a patient is triaged to the physician's initial assessment and the total length of stay from triage until they are discharged from the emergency room. She said they mainly focused on the length of stay since it is more indicative of a hospital's overall operation such as bed shortages. According to the report, the University of Alberta Hospital had the longest visits in Alberta with a median stay of eight hours and 30 minutes in 2024, followed by the Misericordia Community Hospital at seven hours and 54 minutes and the Royal Alexandra Hospital at seven hours and 42 minutes. 'Almost four hours for a length of stay doesn't seem that high, but it is quite high when we look at other countries and I really think that we've just gotten to a place where we accept long wait times and something has to change,' Wittevrongel said.
CTV News
09-05-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Cutting the red tape
Taking Stock The rise of red tape is a huge concern for Canadian business. It feels like an easy fix for a government hoping to help the economy. Amanda Lang speaks with Krystle Wittevrongel, Director of Research at HTE Montreal Economic Institute.
CBC
09-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Manitoba among provinces that stand to gain the most from gutting trade barriers, experts say
As calls grow for removing Canada's interprovincial trade barriers to help counter the effects of a potential trade war with the United States, some experts say Manitoba is among the provinces that stand to gain the most from any regulatory cuts. That idea was borne out by a recent index from the Montreal Economic Institute, which in 2021 suggested that if those barriers had been completely eliminated in 2020, Manitoba's gross domestic product per capita would be nearly $5,000 higher in 2030 compared to a status quo scenario. Only Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador would have seen greater gains, the institute said, with GDP boosts of $10,000 and $9,000, respectively. "Each person in Manitoba could expect to be about $5,000 richer," Krystle Wittevrongel, the institute's director of research and one of the authors of the 2021 index, said in an interview this week. "That's based on GDP. But more on a practical level, we would see people gaining from having better access to goods and services, and having greater access and more products available to them." The idea of reducing barriers to trade between the provinces and territories isn't new, but has gained renewed attention in recent weeks, with federal Internal Trade Minister Anita Anand saying this week those barriers could all crumble within a month. That statement followed an emergency meeting last week between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers, with the ongoing threat of punishing new tariffs being imposed on Canadian imports by Donald Trump's U.S. administration bringing the issue a new sense of urgency. According to a 2019 report from the International Monetary Fund, there are four categories of trade barriers in Canada: natural barriers like geography, prohibitive barriers such as restrictions on the sale of alcohol, technical barriers like vehicle weight standards and regulatory barriers such as licensing and paperwork requirements. Anand has previously said removing existing barriers could lower prices by up to 15 per cent, boost productivity by up to seven per cent and add up to $200 billion to the domestic economy. Canada took steps forward on the issue in 2017 when the provinces and territories, along with the federal government, signed the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which created a formal and binding process to cut down existing trade barriers. The deal applies to all interprovincial trade, but a detailed list of exemptions was negotiated for each province and territory — many of which still exist. While all provinces and territories stand to gain from reducing trade barriers, Manitoba is among those that could benefit the most in part because it's so reliant on trade with other regions, Wittevrongel said — while larger provinces like Ontario and Quebec have big enough workforces to generate more of what they need within their own borders. Liquor, ag — and parkas Sectors like alcohol distilling could be among those that benefit in Manitoba from loosened regulations, with markets across Canada potentially opening up for Manitoba producers to have better access to sell outside the province, Wittevrongel said. Another is agriculture, which could benefit from fewer hurdles in that industry, as well as from changes in the trucking and transportation sector, which plays a huge role in agribusiness, she said. Dan Shin, an assistant professor in the University of Manitoba's supply chain management department at the Asper School of Business, said Manitoba could also benefit if manufactured goods — from auto parts to minerals to Canada Goose parkas — could move across provinces more readily. While it's likely true Manitoba's agricultural industry would see some of the greatest benefits of reduced trade barriers, one expert said that may be easier said than done. Barry Prentice, director of the Transport Institute at the Asper School of Business and a professor in supply chain management, said agriculture is one of the areas where change will be most difficult, in part because there's "so much entrenched resistance" to breaking down barriers that in theory exist to protect farmers. "There's a lot of people [who] don't want these things to change. They're doing very well, thank you very much, from having the protection," Prentice said. But the people who end up losing out because of unnecessary trade barriers are often the consumers, he said, who shoulder the end result: higher costs. Assistant professor Shin said he thinks where Manitoba may have the most to gain is with people, by removing barriers to what's called labour mobility — the ability for people to work the same job anywhere in Canada, which can be made more difficult by differing regulations between provinces and territories. While Manitoba generally has low wages compared to other provinces, it also has a low cost of living — and Shin said he thinks increased competition from removing trade barriers could help drive wages up, making the province even more attractive to outside workers. Shin also believes removing trade barriers would mean a net increase in jobs in Manitoba, in part because it could be cheaper to manufacture goods in Manitoba compared to in other provinces where wages are currently higher. That might lead to more manufacturing facilities setting up shop in Manitoba once eased barriers make that easier, he said. "The reason the economy is going to grow is not because the products are going to get cheaper. I think it's because we're going to get more flood of these highly skilled workers that are going to be coming into our province," Shin said.
