Edmonton ER patients wait longer, stay longer than rest of Alberta
Emergency department stays of 48+ hours jumped to 65% of province's total; average stay now 9+ hours.
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Patients visiting Edmonton-area emergency departments are waiting longer and staying longer than anywhere else in Alberta, according to newly released Alberta Health Services data spanning fiscal year 2020-21 through February 2026.
As of the start of this calendar year, the Edmonton Zone was the site of 65 per cent of all emergency department stays lasting more than 48 hours in Alberta — 8,160 cases compared to 4,305 for the rest of the province combined. That Edmonton Zone figure has more than quadrupled since 2021-22, when it was fewer than 2,000 a year, and has increased at more than double the overall provincial rate over the past four fiscal years.
By the end of fiscal year 2024-25, Misericordia hospital alone was the site of nearly one in five emergency department stays of two days or more provincewide, with 2,557 cases — slightly exceeding all hospitals in the Calgary Zone combined.
The average length of stay in Edmonton Zone hospitals has grown by two hours since 2021-22, double the one-hour average increase seen provincewide. At the end of last calendar year, patients had an average stay of nine hours and 18 minutes in Edmonton Zone hospitals, compared to the Alberta average of six hours and 18 minutes. The provincial average emergency department stay has increased 26 per cent since 2021-22, rising from roughly five hours to more than six hours; Edmonton's has grown 37 per cent.
Wait times for an initial physician assessment tell a similar story. Across all Alberta facilities, the average rose from one hour and 48 minutes five years ago to nearly 2.5 hours by December 2025. The Edmonton Zone recorded the longest average wait at roughly three and a half hours — a 73 per cent increase since 2021-22.
Acute Care Alberta said action is underway to improve patient flow and cut wait times, including strengthening community-based care, improving emergency department throughput, expanding care teams and in-patient bed capacity, and strengthening transitions to community care.