Where are the longest and shortest wait times for walk-in clinics in B.C.?

Under Canada’s health care system, all Canadian residents should theoretically have reasonable access to medically necessary hospital and doctor services without paying out-of-pocket.

But what’s “reasonable access”?

That depends. About one in five people in B.C. don’t have a family doctor, forcing them to rely on walk-in clinics.

And wait times at walk-in clinics can vary considerably, depending on where you live.

According to Medimap, a tech company that tracks wait times at walk-in clinics across most of Canada, B.C. had the second-longest average wait to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic in 2022: 79 minutes. The longest average wait times were in Nova Scotia, at 83 minutes, while the shortest were in Ontario, at an average of 25 minutes. (Medimap does not operate in Quebec, most of the Maritime provinces or the North, so its data is not complete.)

Even in B.C. the wait times varied considerably, from a high of 160 minutes in North Vancouver, to a low of 31 minutes in Richmond.

Average wait times at B.C. walk-in clinics in 2022:

• North Vancouver - 160 minutes
• Victoria – 137 minutes
• Vancouver – 71 minutes
• Burnaby – 65 minutes
• Langley – 60 minutes
• Surrey – 46 minutes
• Abbotsford – 36 minutes
• Chilliwack – 32 minutes
• Richmond – 31 minutes

To check out wait times at walk-in clinics near you on Medimap, go to medimap.ca.

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