Health Minister Christian Dubé confirmed that the situation “will remain difficult in Quebec emergency rooms,” where the number of visits increased by 10% compared to the same period last year.

During a press conference to assess the situation in emergency rooms over the past 14 days, Minister Dubé also expressed his concern about the age of patients coming to emergency rooms and their greater vulnerability.

"Our visits to emergency rooms have increased from 9,000 to 10,000 daily on average over the last 14 days, so we have 1,000 more visits daily than we had in the same period last year," he explained, noting that among these ten thousand, there are 1,600 people over 75 years old, which represents an additional difficulty for cases, because people are more at risk.

The minister also said he wants to reduce the attendance rate in emergencies for so-called P4 or P5 patients, that is, those who can be treated elsewhere. This would allow for faster and more efficient treatment of P1 or P2 cases, those that are a priority, by healthcare staff.

Impact of respiratory viruses...

The Minister of Health also pointed out that the number of patients ending up in the emergency room due to respiratory viruses has nearly doubled.

At this time last year, there were 1,000 people going to the emergency room because of respiratory viruses. And during the past 14 days, there were 1,900 different respiratory viruses other than COVID-19, such as influenza, Mr. Dubé confirmed.