ER Right Now

How full the Pontiac hospital's emergency room is right now — stretchers in use and people waiting, from the health ministry's hourly published data.

Québec's health ministry publishes an hourly snapshot of every ER in the province — stretchers in use, how many people are there, how many are still waiting to be seen. This page reads that file for the hospital on Argue Street, so you can see the same picture the system sees, without hunting through a provincial table.

In an emergency, go — don’t check this page first

If someone is badly hurt, struggling to breathe, or may be having a stroke or heart attack, call 911 or go to the ER now. Triage sees the sickest first, however busy the room is — nothing on this page is a reason to stay away.

0 of the ER’s 4 stretchers are in use right now.

Stretcher occupancy

0 of 4 stretchers in use

People in the ER now

stretchers and waiting room together

Waiting to see a doctor

not yet seen for the first time

On a stretcher over 24 h

0 of them for over 48 h

Hospital snapshot from 21:00 · published 4 minutes ago.

These numbers show how full the ER is — never how long you personally will wait. Patients are seen by how sick they are, not the order they arrive.

What these numbers mean

Stretcher occupancy compares patients on stretchers with the ER’s standard stretcher spots. Overflow and shock stretchers count as occupied but not as capacity, so a hard night can read over 100% — that means more stretcher patients than standard spots, not a mistake.
“Waiting to see a doctor” counts everyone — on a stretcher or in the waiting room — who hasn’t yet been seen for the first time.
“On a stretcher over 24 h” counts people whose whole ER stay has passed a full day; most are waiting for a hospital bed upstairs, not forgotten.
A quiet-looking board doesn’t promise a short visit, and a full one doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come — staffing and how sick people are matter more than the count.

Yesterday’s average visit, start to finish: about 6 h 31 min for patients on a stretcher, 7 h 49 min for walk-in patients. That’s yesterday’s average — not a prediction of your wait.

Not sure the ER is the right place?

Info-Santé 8-1-1

Free nurse advice line, day and night, with service in English. A nurse can tell you whether the ER, the CLSC or a clinic is the right place for what you have.

Phone: 811

The hospital

Pontiac Community Hospital (Hôpital du Pontiac)

Phone: (819) 647-2211
Address: 200 Argue Street, Shawville, QC

Why the ER is like this

A hard stretch, in the hospital's own numbers

The Pontiac Community Hospital ER's average stretcher stay jumped to about 17 hours in 2024–25, from about 7 hours the year before, and the share of patients spending more than 48 hours on a stretcher rose from 1.5% to 6.2% — the only Outaouais hospital whose ER grade declined that year. ER visits have nearly doubled in five years, and at last report 14 of the hospital's 33 beds were occupied by patients waiting for a transfer elsewhere — which is a big part of why stretchers back up.

The doctor shortage behind the ER lines

Around 2,000 people in the Pontiac have been without a family doctor, and Shawville's Lotus clinic — built to keep 12 family doctors under one roof — has been up for sale since early 2025. When people can't see a doctor, more of what they have ends up at the ER. If you don't have a family doctor, register with the province's family doctor finder (GAMF) below; while you wait, 811 can triage most everyday problems.

The official picture

The province publishes the same situation data for every ER:

Situation in emergency rooms in Québec — Québec.ca — the province's own page, with the same data for every ER
Register for a family doctor (GAMF) — Québec's waiting list for a family doctor — being on it is what gets you matched

Data: Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux, “Fichier horaire des données de la situation à l’urgence”, via Données Québec (CC BY 4.0). Updated hourly, published about 45 minutes behind the pictured hour. (dataset)

ER Right Now

ER Right Now

About these tools

What these numbers mean

Not sure the ER is the right place?

The hospital

Why the ER is like this

A hard stretch, in the hospital's own numbers

The doctor shortage behind the ER lines

The official picture