Imagine being sick enough to drag yourself to the emergency room, waiting for hours in pain or fear, and then finally giving up and going home without ever seeing a doctor.
That’s what happened to nearly 300,000 Ontarians in 2024, according to a new report from the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI). Out of almost 6 million ER visits across the province last year, 4.9% ended with the patient leaving untreated — a 31% jump since 2019.
And Ontario isn’t alone. Across Canada, more than 1.2 million people left emergency rooms without receiving care last year — about one in every thirteen visits. The national rate is now 7.8%, up 35.6% in just five years.
“These patients are not leaving because they feel better, but because the system is failing them,” said Renaud Brossard, MEI’s vice-president of communications. “Thousands of Ontarians are being denied access to care each year.”
Yesterday’s Article Was a Good Starting Point
Yesterday, we published a piece called “Ontario Might Let Trained Health-Care Professionals… Use Their Training.” It explored how many of our existing health-care professionals — like nurse practitioners and pharmacists — are underused, and how loosening outdated restrictions could help relieve pressure on overcrowded hospitals. Ontario is looking at doing that.
That’s an important place to start. Unlocking the skills of trained professionals already working in the system could help prevent people from needing to go to the ER in the first place. But today’s MEI report shows just how urgent the situation has become. This isn’t only about inefficiency anymore — it’s about real people being turned away, or walking away, from a system that’s overwhelmed.
The numbers are staggering, and behind them are stories of fear, pain, and frustration. Almost half of the Ontarians who left untreated were classified as “P3”, meaning they weren’t in immediate danger of dying, but their conditions were still serious enough to need urgent attention. These aren’t minor scrapes and sniffles. They’re people who could get worse, fast.
This Isn’t a Left or Right Issue
It’s easy to see health care as a political battleground, but this crisis goes beyond party lines. Here’s why:
- Everyone is affected. Whether you vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green, or none of the above, everyone depends on emergency rooms when something goes wrong. When they don’t work, it hurts us all.
- We share the same basic goals. Across the political spectrum, people want care that’s fast, fair, and effective. Nobody benefits from patients being sent away untreated — especially when many come back later with worsened conditions that cost the system more to treat.
- The solutions aren’t ideological. The MEI suggests expanding nurse practitioner-led clinics, letting pharmacists use their full training, and creating stand-alone urgent care centres (like in France) to handle non-life-threatening emergencies. Those aren’t “left” or “right” ideas — they’re just practical fixes.
This isn’t about choosing public versus private or government versus business. It’s about making sure people get help when they need it. Period.
What Needs to Happen
Fixing this won’t be simple, but there are clear steps we can take:
- Invest in primary care and urgent care so people don’t have to go to ERs for conditions that could be handled elsewhere.
- Expand the roles of existing health professionals like nurse practitioners and pharmacists, as both the MEI and yesterday’s article suggest.
- Create more immediate care centres outside of hospitals to treat non-life-threatening emergencies quickly, freeing up ERs for the truly critical cases.
- Work together across party lines to make these changes last. Everyone has a stake in this — and no one wins if nothing changes.
We Can’t Keep Letting People Slip Through the Cracks
Ontario’s walkout rate is still lower than the national average, but it’s climbing — and the sheer number of untreated patients is alarming. Each one represents a missed opportunity to help, and a risk that their condition will worsen and become more costly to treat later.
Yesterday’s article was right: we do need to let trained health-care professionals actually use their training. But that’s just one part of the solution. If we want to stop people from giving up on the system, we need to act boldly — not politically. Because this isn’t a left-versus-right problem. It’s an everyone problem.
And if we don’t fix it soon, the next person who leaves untreated could be someone we love.
