Officials in two provinces are trying to find out how their health systems are being affected by the number of patients from Quebec's Outaouais region crossing the Ottawa River into eastern Ontario for treatment.

Most of the information about patients crossing the boundary for health care comes from anecdotes and short-term snapshots, such as data about emergency room use in a given month, said Dr. Robert Cushman, head of the Champlain Local Health Integration Network, the Ontario provincial agency that administers health funding in Ottawa and the surrounding area.

What officials do know, based on numbers from Quebec's public health insurance agency, is that in 2006, the Quebec government paid $67 million to have 46,000 patients from the Outaouais treated in Ontario. In 2000, that cost was $43 million.

In the new study, researchers are collecting statistics such as how many people in the Outaouis have family doctors and the use of emergency rooms and hospital beds, breaking the numbers down along parameters such as the age of the patients and the reason they were admitted.

Hard numbers about the scope of the problem should be available by January, Cushman said.

"Then we can start to plan accordingly to see out what needs to be done," he said.

Cecile McHugh, 62, who lives in Hull, Que., now part of Gatineau, says a visit to her local ER prompted her to start seeking all her health services in Ontario, even though she has to pay hundreds of dollars each month out of her small pension.

Two months ago McHugh, who is diabetic, waited 16 hours to see a doctor the Hull hospital emergency room after a fall. The accident caused her foot to swell and blackened the bottom of her leg to the point that it looked like she was wearing a black boot. She feared she had a blood clot.

She was eventually treated, but she saw that staff were overwhelmed, and there was an apparent lack of space and health-care workers. She said she was turned off by the poor level of care and attention she received. So she decided to go back to seeking health services in Ottawa, where she lived until a year ago.

"If I had the medical service that I need and require here in Quebec, I would love it," she said. "You can't find a family doctor here.… I have no choice."

She said her husband was told he would need to wait eight months to see an eye specialist in Quebec, but got an appointment in two weeks in Ontario.

Because many Quebec patients have to pay for Ontario health services up front and Quebec reimburses only a portion of the cost — sometimes less than half — McHugh paid more than $400 in medical expenses in September alone.

She said she and her husband can't afford that on their small pensions.

In addition, Quebec's public health insurance agency said it takes an average of 45 days to reimburse patients, but doctors in Ontario said it tends to take longer than that.

Nevertheless, McHugh said she will never go back to the Quebec health-care system unless she's forced to.