May 2024<\/a>, MPP Nolan Quinn, who at the time was parliamentary assistant to the health minister, also referenced Health811\u2019s response time, stating 95 percent of the calls and chat requests Health811 receives\u2014up to 90,000 each month, he said\u2014\u201care directed to an adviser or clinical staff member in less than one minute.\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s unclear what response rates Quinn was referring to.<\/p>\n
The data we obtained through our freedom of information requests shows that Health811 recorded a total 113,858 inbound calls and chats in the first month it was launched, and managed to handle 62 percent of them. (A definition was not provided for what \u201chandled\u201d entailed.) But over time, those call and chat volumes declined considerably, suggesting fewer Ontarians are now relying on the service. In May 2024, when Quinn was addressing the Legislative Assembly, Health811 recorded only 61,245 inbound chats and calls for the month, and handled 87 percent of them. In July 2025, the last month for which data was provided, there were even fewer inbound calls and chats\u201451,274 of them, of which they handled 92 percent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And while it may be, as both Quinn and the Ontario Health report stated, that over a certain period, 95 percent of calls and chats were answered by someone in less than a minute, the data we obtained shows it generally takes much longer to speak with a registered nurse. In February 2025, for example, amid cold and flu season, it took an average of 16.4 minutes for a call back from a nurse for higher priority calls and chats, and an average 5.6 hours for lower priority calls and chats.<\/p>\n
By comparison, data we obtained for Telehealth, from 2018-19 to 2021-22, shows average wait times were mostly in the seconds or minutes, not hours. Unlike for Health811, there were no separate metrics for higher and lower priority calls to Telehealth\u2014all are grouped together. And the call volumes and wait times for Telehealth did surge during the early waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Yet prior to the pandemic, callers could speak with a Telehealth nurse within a few minutes. In May 2018, for example, it took an average of 10 seconds for calls to be transferred from an automated attendant to a nurse or receptionist, and less than 3.5 minutes, on average, to be transferred from a receptionist to a nurse.<\/p>\n
And even in March 2022, the month before Telehealth was replaced by Health811, those average wait times were 1 minute 45 seconds and 5.5 minutes respectively. (The average wait for voice messages to be returned by a nurse was considerably longer, though, at just over two hours.)<\/p>\n
For higher priority callers and chat users of Health811, the fact that the average wait time was as low as under 10 minutes is reassuring, said Adil Shamji, an emergency doctor and MPP for Don Valley East, who is the Liberal health critic.<\/p>\n
But if people seeking advice about less urgent health matters have to wait five to 11 hours for a call back, and are then advised to go to see a pharmacist or walk-in clinic, those places may no longer even be open for the day, Shamji said.<\/p>\n
Moreover, he added, the longer people wait, the worse their conditions could get.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor issues that may be prioritized as less urgent, a five to 11 hour wait can turn them into an urgent issue and can defeat the purpose of the line in the first place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To Abdurrahman, the president of the Ontario Medical Association, the Health811 data reflects what she described as a \u201cfamily medicine crisis.\u201d The effectiveness of Health811 depends on timely access to family doctors and community services. But without that timely access, the service acts more as a \u201cholding area\u201d for patients, she said. Instead of helping direct people to the right level of care as it\u2019s designed to do, it\u2019s merely redistributing the pressure on the health care system, not resolving it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn medicine, none of us work in isolation,\u201d Abdurrahman said. Family doctors are needed to reduce the strain on emergency departments, she explained, while community services are needed so that hospitals can discharge patients into the community. \u201cWhen we have a crisis in one area, you see a backlog across all the areas\u201d in the health care system, she said.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced that around 275,000 Ontarians were enrolled with a primary care provider in the early stages of the government\u2019s plan to ensure everyone in the province has a primary care provider by 2029.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a significant number, Abdurrahman said, but it isn\u2019t enough, given the pace of population growth in the province.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNewsletter<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNever Miss a Story<\/p>\n
Sign-up to our free newsletter to receive the next story in the Cost of Care issue\u2014publishing throughout January and February 2026.<\/p>\n
“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/EditorsLetter_NataliaPamies_HighRes-scaled.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Bridve Sivakumar is a postdoctoral fellow at Women\u2019s College Hospital who evaluates digital health tools. As an applied scientist, she sits in on meetings of representatives of Health811 and similar programs in provinces and territories across the country.<\/p>\n
Sivakumar emphasized that Health811 is meant for episodic health care needs, like minor aches and pains, and does not replace continuous care by a primary care provider, or emergency care for serious issues like chest pains.<\/p>\n
She pointed out that while the data we obtained shows callers\u2019 and chat users\u2019 average wait times, it does not capture the quality of advice they receive. Even if someone may wait five hours for a callback, there is more to the story, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re getting the advice that they need, and maybe being directed to the appropriate care or information that they need,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Given the limited data we obtained, there is, indeed, more to the story. How many people didn\u2019t bother to wait for a call back? For those who did, how many followed the advice they were given? What were their outcomes?<\/p>\n
Doris Grinspun, chief executive officer of the Registered Nurses\u2019 Association of Ontario, said there needs to be public reporting on Health811\u2019s website that provides clear, easy-to-understand metrics on how the service is faring. That could include a dashboard with information like real-time wait times, the most common questions from callers and chat users, and their satisfaction scores.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are the types of things that will truly improve the system, in my view, going forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As it stands, patients like Dawn Smith are left with a system that promises 24-hour access but can\u2019t provide timely help.<\/p>\n
That night, back in December 2024, she ultimately gave up on Health811. Instead, she waited to call her doctor\u2019s office when it opened the next morning, and saw a primary care provider within their family health team. She said she\u2019s not sure she\u2019d ever bother contacting Health811 again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m lucky that I do have a doctor,\u201d said Smith, relieved she didn\u2019t end up having to wait more than 11 hours for a call back from Health811. \u201cIf that was my only option, that\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time Dawn Smith\u2019s flight arrived from Mexico, it was too late in the evening for her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,178207],"class_list":["post-470998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-the-cost-of-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}