ER delay claims involve allegations that a patient who presented to an Ontario emergency department was harmed by the time it took for them to be seen, assessed, investigated, treated, or transferred. Common patterns include patients with strokes who waited beyond the thrombolytic window, patients with surgical emergencies whose operations were deferred while the system caught up, sepsis patients whose antibiotics were delayed, and patients who left without being seen and deteriorated at home.
The standard of care analysis in an ER delay claim is contextual. Emergency department triage is intentionally designed to prioritize patients by acuity rather than arrival time, and a wait that would be unreasonable for a clearly high-acuity presentation may be appropriate for a lower-acuity one. The Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) provides the framework most Ontario emergency departments use to categorize patients on arrival, although the assignment of a CTAS level itself can be contested in litigation. Systemic factors, including hallway medicine, staffing shortages, and ambulance offload delays, complicate the analysis but do not, in themselves, displace the duty owed to individual patients.
Causation in ER delay cases focuses on what difference earlier care would have made to the patient’s outcome, an analysis that is often supported by neuroradiology, pathology, or other time-sensitive medical evidence.
Posts tagged ER Delay analyze Ontario decisions in which the timing of emergency department care was at issue, including triage decisions, wait times, and the systemic conditions that shape both.
When overcrowded Ontario emergency departments contribute to delayed diagnoses, premature discharges, or death, the legal standard of care does not bend.
September 2023 coverage in CP24 and the Brampton Guardian of the Thompson v Handler trial decision finding an ER physician negligent for the death of a 34-year-old mother.
Roughly 9% of strokes are initially misdiagnosed in the emergency setting. A practical guide to how stroke claims are investigated and proven in Ontario.
A trial judge dismissed a medical malpractice claim against two ER physicians, finding the standard of care was met and that earlier testing would not have changed the outcome.
A community hospital ER physician failed to insist on the urgent transfer of a patient with a pulseless limb. The trial judge found liability for the lost leg.
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