A new survey of Ontario’s emergency room physicians suggests the majority are struggling with severe overcrowding, hurting the ability of some to see patients as quickly as they should.
A study released by the Ontario Medical Association on Monday morning polled ER doctors across the province to build a snapshot of the struggling health-care system.
“The survey reveals a health-care system in profound crisis, with overwhelming consensus among emergency department physicians about the severity of challenges facing Ontario’s EDs,” the OMA wrote.
Get weekly health news
Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.
Roughly 15 per cent of the emergency room physicians in the province responded to the survey — with the vast majority of those polled reporting issues.
Seventy-four per cent of those who answered said overcrowding was either severe or critical, while 76 per cent said overcrowding affected their ability to provide timely care “on most shifts or nearly every shift.”
The data follows an Ipsos poll, also commissioned by the OMA, that found a majority of Ontarians thought the government had done a poor job of dealing with overcrowding in emergency rooms.
A spokesperson for Minister of Health Sylvia Jones said the government was “making record investments” in the province’s health-care system.
“This year alone, we are investing over $101 billion in our healthcare system, including a 4 per cent increase to the hospital sector for the third year in a row, bringing our total investment increase to hospitals to over 50 per cent since 2018,” they wrote.
“This is in addition to the 50 new MRI and CT machines we have added in hospitals, the 100,000 annual diagnostic scans we have added in community surgical and diagnostic centres, and the 3,500 new hospital beds, 20,000 new doctors, and 100,000 new nurses that have been added since 2018.”
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
