South West Area Times and Waitlist Information
Access to timely care is important to patients, their families and caregivers, and is a measure of the quality of health care that a person receives. Our care coordinators assess a person’s care needs to determine which services, and how urgently services, are needed. Patients who need care urgently will get the care they need right away, while people with less urgent or complex care needs may wait for their services to start or be connected with a community resource.
Wait times
With a specific emphasis on reducing wait times for Ontario Health atHome patients with the greatest need, the ministries of Health and Long-Term Care introduced a measure for access to timely care – a five-day wait time for home nursing visits and personal support visits for patients with complex care needs.
We measure our ability to provide care within five days of assessment completed by a care coordinator. We measure this for all patients who need nursing, as well as for complex patients who require personal support services.
The information below will help you understand how quickly we are able to get care to patients.
Percentage of South West area patients receiving care within five (5) days as of October 31, 2024
- Nursing: 88.1%
- Personal support for patients with complex needs: 86.5%
Waitlists
We are not always able to provide certain services to all patients. When this occurs, some patients are placed on a waitlist until capacity to provide that service becomes available. A waitlist exists for a service usually when there are limited resources to provide the service. Patients with the most urgent and complex care needs are given priority. A waitlist may also exist for certain services when there are too few clinicians in the community with the necessary expertise.
The below indicates how many people are on waitlists for certain services.
Number of patients on a waitlist in the South West area as of October 31, 2024
In-Home Services
- Nursing: 129
- Personal support services: 122
- Physiotherapy: 31
- Occupational therapy: 143
- Speech-language pathology: 1
- Nutritional services: 21
- Social work: 1
Long-Term Care Waitlist
There are many factors to be considered when choosing a long-term care home. The size of the waitlist (number of people on the waitlist) in homes you are considering may be important to you. While the length of the waitlist may be a factor in how soon you may be able to move in, the length of the waitlist is not necessarily an indication of how long you may have to wait.
When reviewing the information below, please keep in mind:
- Each individual may chose up to five homes. People may also be interested in more than one type of bed or accommodation (i.e., basic, semi-private and/or private) in any given home. This means that one person may be represented on multiple waitlists.
- The number of days waited are presented as the experience of nine out of 10 people. You may wait for a longer or shorter period of time, depending on your circumstances and the number of available beds.
- The numbers below fluctuate based on a variety of factors; your care coordinator can provide you with information about the options that may best meet your individual needs.
- Each person who applies for long-term care is assigned a priority category. The priority category of each person on the waitlist also affects wait times.
If you are looking for wait times for specific long-term care homes, please contact your care coordinator or call 1-800-811-5146.