Victoria has second highest wait times in Canada for walk-in clinics

For the second year in a row, Victoria has the second-longest average wait time in the country, according to a report released this week by Medimap, a tech company that matches patients with walk-in clinics.

Victoria’s average wait time in 2023 was 107 mins, surpassed only by North Vancouver with an average wait of 187 minutes.

While the provincial average has risen to 92 minutes from 79, Victoria’s wait times are down from 2022’s average of 137 minutes, according to the report. BC’s average wait time is 25 minutes longer than the Canada-wide average.

Medimap currently collects data from six provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia.

“BC has an unusual problem on its hands—recent changes to the physician payment model have resulted in some walk-in clinics actually closing, exacerbating the very problem the change was trying to address,” Thomas Jankowski, Medimap’s CEO, said in a release.

While some people have been rostered at a medical clinic with the new registration system, those who haven’t been matched with a family doctor are struggling more to access care, Jankowski said.

The South Island has lost multiple walk-in clinics over the last few years. Shoreline Medical Clinic in the peninsula announced recently that it would close its walk-in clinics next month to expand primary care, citing high demand and long wait times as reasons for discontinuing the service. Some 3,500 people are expected to lose their family doctor when the Shelbourne Medical Clinic closes next month.

However, the switch from the previous payment system, which came into effect last year, has helped the province retain and attract more doctors, with 4K family physicians signing onto the new payment system, according to the province.

Victoria has landed in the top five for the longest wait times in Canada for several years, falling at No.1 in 2022 when wait times were 2 hours and 41 minutes. Three Greater Victoria municipalities topped the list in 2019, before Medimap began consolidating Greater Victoria's municipalities.