Privacy and terms

No accounts, no cookies, no ads and no tracking or analytics.

Your browser remembers one thing on this device: whether you prefer the map and list or the table. You can clear it by clearing this site’s data in your browser. Choosing the table also adds ?view=table to the page address, so a link you share opens the same way.

Postal code or town. What you type goes to our server to find the nearby hospitals, and is in the page address. Postal codes are matched against a table on our server: by the full code for rural codes (a 0 as the second character, like P0L 1C0), otherwise by the first three characters. A town we do not already know is looked up once with OpenStreetMap’s place search (only the text you typed, not who you are). Answers are kept on our server and by our hosting company’s network so the same lookup is not asked again; they are stored against the text typed, not against you.

Use my location. Your browser asks your permission first. If you agree, your position, rounded to about 10 metres, goes in the page address so the list can sort by distance. We do not save it. Anyone you share that link with can see that position.

Like any website, the company that hosts it (Vercel) keeps standard records of page requests, including the page address, for a short time. With a place in the address, that includes the place.

The map is drawn from OpenFreeMap tiles, loaded straight into your browser, so OpenFreeMap sees your internet address and the area you are looking at, as with any image on the web.

Directions opens Google Maps, where Google’s own privacy policy applies.

Live ER waits are read by our server from each hospital’s website. Your browser does not contact the hospitals.

Surgery, scan and monthly ER numbers are published by Ontario Health. Monthly ER numbers come from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System, Canadian Institute for Health Information, as reported by Ontario Health. Live ER waits are each hospital’s own figure from its own website, and each hospital measures it differently.

Ontario Waits is independent. It is not part of, endorsed by or affiliated with Ontario Health, the Government of Ontario or any hospital.

How it works explains what every number means.

Numbers are averages from past patients, except live ER waits. Most cover one month, published about two months later. For less common procedures Ontario Health publishes a quarter, half-year or year instead; those dates are shown beside the number. Your own wait depends on how urgent your care is and on the day. Emergency departments see the sickest patients first, not in the order they arrive.

We copy the numbers carefully and check them, but we can make mistakes and sources can change. Check with the hospital or your doctor before making a decision. We are not responsible for decisions made using this site.

You can ask your family doctor or specialist to refer you to a hospital or surgeon with a shorter wait.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, tiles by OpenFreeMap. Place and postal code areas: GeoNames (CC BY 4.0), grouped by postal area. Ontario outline: Natural Earth (public domain).

Ontario Waits is built by Jeff Mudrick. Questions or corrections: jeff@physicianfinancing.ca.