The Hastings-Quinte Community Paramedicine Program will be expanding thanks to a Provincial Government funding commitment for the next four years.
MPP Todd Smith announced the almost $6 million in additional funding at the Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Base on Millennium Parkway, on Thursday.
The community paramedicine program started operating in Hastings-Quinte about five years ago, before being implemented in other parts of the province and Smith says the local paramedic service continues to be a leader on that front.
“It’s really taken a strain off our hospitals. If you can have paramedics going out and visiting people who are waiting to get into a long-term care facility, treating them in their home which is where they want to be, then it really reduces the emergency room visits and hallway health care”
Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Chief Doug Socha speaks at a funding announcement to help expand the community paramedicine program, on February 11, 2021. (Photo: David Foot / Quinte News)
Paramedic Chief Doug Socha tells Quinte News the expansion will focus on people who are on the wait list for long term care homes.
“Obviously there’s lots of challenges in trying to expand the long-term care beds. We see about 75 patients on our roster of community paramedics seeing them in their homes, so right now we’re doing a cross-reference of how many of those are on the long-term care wait list so we can cater to that and then look at who else we can support.”
He added that the provincial commitment will allow the service to dedicate paramedics strictly to the community program.
“Previously they would be both on the road as an advanced care paramedic working on the ambulance and then we would replace them on those shifts to go do community paramedic work. With this new expanded funding, we’re looking to start with a minimum of 10 advanced care paramedics to go through that training again and then see how that works with the budgetary side of it.”
Three quarters of the money will be used to pay paramedics’ salaries and the rest will go towards any equipment that is needed to support the program’s expansion.
The community paramedicine program provides vulnerable residents with 24/7 in-home health care and monitoring, which takes pressure off local hospitals and long-term care facilities, by allowing residents to live at home safely.
