Québec ER wait times — every hospital, one board
CONNECTING TO THE BOARD FEED…
Every emergency room in Québec — about 120 of them — on one live English board: stretcher occupancy, how many people are in each ER, how many are still waiting to be seen, and the average length of stay, straight from the ministry's hourly open-data file. The searches say «temps d'attente urgence»; the answer is here in any language.
The 16 regions
City boards with per-hospital detail: Montréal · Quebec City · Chicoutimi · Victoriaville — more cities as this board grows.
Most crowded right now — the live league table
How to read these numbers — honestly
The headline figure is stretcher occupancy: how many of an ER's functional stretchers are in use. 100% means every stretcher is full; Québec ERs routinely run past 130% in winter — patients on stretchers in hallways. It is a pressure gauge, not a "minutes until a doctor sees you" estimate: triage category decides who is seen first, and a quiet-looking ER can still mean a long wait for minor complaints. The province publishes its own estimated wait for non-priority cases per facility on quebec.ca — use both together: our board for pressure and trend, theirs for the official estimate. We relay the ministry's hourly file verbatim and compute only the percentage.
Not sure the ER is the right place?
Québec's Info-Santé 811 line (option 1) puts a nurse on the phone 24/7, and 811 option 3 (Guichet d'accès à la première ligne) can book urgent same-week appointments with a doctor or nurse — often the faster path for non-emergencies. Walk-in clinics and pharmacists (who can now treat several minor conditions in Québec) are alternatives worth checking before a multi-hour ER visit. When in doubt, go to the ER — this is information, not medical advice.
Cite this data
Journalists and researchers: quote freely with attribution. Underlying data: «Fichier horaire des données de la situation à l'urgence», MSSS via Données Québec (CC-BY 4.0). Our board and hourly archive: Transit Barometer — transitbarometer.com/er-wait-times/. We keep an hourly history file of every hospital's occupancy — the public record nobody else maintains — and can share extracts for stories on request.
Transit Barometer is an independent data board — not affiliated with the MSSS, Santé Québec, or any hospital. Figures are the ministry's own hourly open-data file, relayed verbatim under CC-BY 4.0 (Source : MSSS / Données Québec). On any discrepancy, the official page wins.
Reading the Québec numbers
How current is this Québec ER data?
The ministry regenerates its file hourly (each row carries the extraction stamp you see above), and this board re-reads it every hour and refreshes itself in your browser. It is the same file behind the official quebec.ca page — relayed verbatim, hospital by hospital.
What does «waiting for care» (attente de PEC) mean?
People registered at triage who have not yet had their medical prise en charge — first assessment by a doctor. Alongside occupancy, it is the best single indicator of how backed up an ER's front end is right now.
What is DMS — the average stay figure?
«Durée moyenne de séjour» — the current average length of stay, shown separately for stretcher patients and ambulatory patients (h:mm). A stretcher DMS above ~18 hours signals a hospital struggling to move admitted patients up to wards.
Which Québec ERs are usually the most overcrowded?
Winter after winter, media reports name the greater Montréal belt — but that is anecdote; this board's hourly archive measures it. The league table above is live, and by mid-winter our archive can rank the season properly. Check the table rather than assuming.
Can I choose a different ER if mine shows 140%?
For a true emergency, no — go to the nearest ER or call 911; triage protects the sickest everywhere. For a non-urgent problem, a neighbouring hospital at 70% can genuinely mean hours saved — that comparison is exactly what this page is for. Consider 811 option 3 or a clinic first.
Why is a hospital showing «not reported this hour»?
The ministry's file occasionally omits an installation or an entire region for an hour or two. When that happens we say so and link the official page — this board never shows a stale number as current.
Is this the official government page?
No. The official pages are quebec.ca (estimated waits) and Données Québec (the raw file). We are an independent board adding what the official page doesn't offer: every hospital on one page in English, ranked, with history.