Flu season strains Niagara Health system, wait times near four hours

Emergency room visits across Ontario, on average, take around two hours, but in the Niagara region that figure is closer to three.

With the respiratory illness season upon us, Niagara Health says there’s added strain on its healthcare facilities. Wait times today at hospitals across Niagara were nearly two hours longer than in Hamilton and Halton.

“We are always extremely busy. And this is the reality across all emergency departments in this province and the country,” said Dr. Rafi Setrak, Niagara Health’s regional chief of emergency medicine.

Between September of 2024 and 2025, Niagara Health’s hospital system consistently tracked above provincial wait time averages – sometimes, by big margins.

“December to March is the season for flu and respiratory illnesses, this is usually year-after-year, except during COVID when COVID was the predominant virus,” said Dr. Setrak.

And like clockwork, the flu season is taking its toll on Niagara’s healthcare system again.

This morning, wait times for hospitals in Hamilton were, on average, two hours.

In an email to CHCH News today, Halton Healthcare said their wait time to see a physician was 3.9 hours in November, compared to 4.8 hours during the same period last year.

They emphasized that this “metric reflects the time it takes for a patient to be first assessed by a clinician, not the total time spent in the emergency department.”

In Niagara, wait times jump – and in some cases to nearly four hours.

Niagara Health says in recent weeks their hospital beds have hit occupancy rates of 116 per cent.

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“As we come into spring we should see an improvement. But right now, this is peak occupancy inside the hospital, which means peak occupancy in the emergency department,” said Dr. Setrak.

CHCH News spoke with Wayne Gates, the member of provincial parliament for part of the Niagara region, and he said this is nothing new.

“We’ve had a problem with healthcare in Niagara for a long, long time. This past winter, as we know, our wait times were over 50 per cent the provincial average. Sometimes it was closer to 60 per cent because, as you know, we’ve gone through a very, very bad flu season,” said Gates.

He worries the problem is about to get worse.

“Niagara Health is going to lay off close to 100 workers in the system to save $9 million. Yet that same time that they were announcing that layoff, the Ford government and the minister of health announced they were giving $150 million to private clinics in Toronto,” said Gates.

According to Niagara Health’s 2023-2024 annual report, it had over 150,000 emergency department visits.

The following year, that number was roughly the same – dropping by about 3,000 visits.

Gates says it’s not uncommon for him to hear healthcare complaints from his constituents.

“You’re waiting there for hours and hours and hours before you see a doctor. And then if you need to have anything done, you’re in the hallway for hours, sometimes days,” said Gates.

He says more and more people in Niagara are opting for care outside the region.

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