A Toronto emergency physician is calling for surge funding and more staffed hospital capacity as patients face hours-long waits at several city emergency departments.

Dr. Raghu Venugopal, who works at three Toronto hospitals and has 19 years of emergency-room experience, told CityNews that patient volumes have become “out-of-control.” He described arriving for overnight shifts with 50 to 100 people waiting to be seen as “demoralizing.”

Hospital wait-time postings reported by CityNews on Thursday, Nov. 12, showed substantial delays that shifted throughout the day. Around 9 a.m., Toronto General Hospital’s posted wait was nearly seven hours, Toronto Western Hospital’s was five hours and 42 minutes, and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s was three hours and 47 minutes.

By 3 p.m., Sunnybrook’s posted wait had climbed to six hours and 55 minutes, while Toronto General and Toronto Western were each around three-and-a-half hours.

North York General Hospital, which does not publish real-time waits, had an alert on its website Thursday afternoon warning of high emergency-department volumes and longer-than-normal waits, CityNews reported.

Venugopal said difficulty accessing care elsewhere is a major driver of demand. Some patients have no family doctor, while others have one but cannot get an appointment for three weeks, he said.

CityNews reported that provincial data put the wait to see an emergency physician over the past year at 1.7 to two hours. Venugopal said that median does not capture patients experiencing much longer delays. He described seeing people who had waited four to eight hours, and said some Toronto patients wait 10 hours just to see a doctor. Tests, scans and treatment can extend their total hospital stay beyond 15 hours, he added.

Bringing in additional doctors alone would not resolve the pressure, he said. Nursing, radiology, hospital beds and long-term-care capacity also need to expand to help emergency departments make room for new patients.

Venugopal credited the provincial government with adding beds, but argued that capacity has not kept pace with population growth, aging and increasingly complex medical needs. He warned that hospitals are already full ahead of respiratory season.

CityNews said it requested on-camera interviews from the hospitals, but none was made available.

Despite the delays, Venugopal said patients should not be blamed or discouraged from seeking emergency care. He also urged people to get flu and COVID-19 vaccines to reduce their risk of severe illness.

Sources