Red Deerians have to wait an average of 43 minutes to see a walk-in clinic physician — one of the longest waits in the province.
The average Albertan waits 18 min. at walk-in clinics, less than half the time it takes for Red Deer patients. The Canadian average is 25 minutes.
This data was supplied by Medimap, a Canadian tech company that publishes online wait-times for hundreds of walk-in medical clinics across the country.
Blake Adam, the CEO of Medimap, said a couple of factors could be leading to unusually long waits at Red Deer walk-in clinics.
Many local residents could be finding it hard to find a family doctor, and so they have to go to walk-in clinics for medical treatment, he said.
Another factor is the number of clinics within Red Deer. Adam believes this city could be under-served with 11 walk-in clinics, or one for every 9,500 people.
By comparison, Calgary — which has a 15-min. average wait time at its walk-in clinics — has about 200 clinics available, or one for every 7,000 people.
Adam fears “this supply and demand thing” could lead some Red Deerians to delay getting timely medical treatment.
“You definitely don’t want people staying home, allowing their conditions to go untreated because they don’t have a family doctor, or don’t have the time to wait at a walk-in clinic.”
Medimap.ca shows residents real-time waiting periods at various clinics in Red Deer (Adam said most city clinics subscribe to his company’s service).
On certain days, or times of day, waits are much shorter than other periods, said Adams, who encourages those without much time for sitting in waiting rooms to check out the website, which also contains information about waits for specialists in mental health, dietary health and other therapists.
According to Medimap data, Alberta patients with the shortest walk-in-clinic waits live in Sherwood Park (an average of four minutes), Calgary (15 min.), and Airdrie (16 min.)
Edmontonians wait an average of 21 min. and Medicine Hat residents wait 35 min. Lethbridge wait times were not provided. Only Grande Prairie residents have a longer wait time than Red Deer, with an average of 45 minutes.
Medimap data shows that Alberta was second to Ontario (15 min.) for having the shortest patients waits for walk-in clinics in Canada. B.C. had the longest patient waits in the country at 58 min.