A report by the Canadian Institute For Health Information, shows Manitoba has some of the longest Emergency Room wait times in the country.
    
The report says Manitobans, on average spend 4.7 hours in the Emergency Room, compared to the Canadian average of 3.1 hours. Though he can't give more precise numbers, Greg Reid with Southern Health-Santé Sud says in this region, the average wait time does not exceed four hours.

"I don't think we're seeing a trend of wait times increasing," explains Reid. "Sometimes it is a challenge depending on how folks have been triaged. We use a triaging scale, like all other hospitals do in Southern Health."

Reid says patients who visit an ER are not seen on a first come first served basis. Based on the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale, patients are graded from level 1 to level 5. Reid notes level 1 is a patient that needs to be seen by a physician immediately. This could include someone brought in by ambulance because of cardiac arrest. Level 5 is someone who needs to be seen by a physician, but a case that could be dealt with at a clinic at a later date.

According to Reid, Southern Health-Santé Sud does not have a goal in terms of how short it would like to see wait times.

"We certainly make attempts to keep it as low as possible," he says. "But there are always circumstances where wait times do go beyond what we're comfortable with."

Meanwhile, the report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information goes on to say Manitobans admitted to hospital after visiting an ER stay 12 hours compared to the national average of 9 hours.

"I can't give you a specific number for Southern Health," says Reid. "But I can tell you that we would say that our numbers would be significantly lower than that."