COVID pressure on ambulance service

The COVID-19 pressure on hospitals is causing extra pressure on paramedics as well.

Speaking at a meeting of the Emergency Measures Committee, Chief of Emergency Services Doug Socha reported that his department is seeing increased pressures and has hired additional staff.

“The real shift we are seeing now is a lot of increased pressures, both from the staffing side our service, hospitals, Long Term Care. Really you know, everybody in health care has really been at their max. We certainly have hired a number of additional staff to try and help to0 mitigate that but I still continue to have a lot of staff off, and at the same time a lot of operational pressures.

“Specifically related to COVID. The real challenge is the hospital structures and the casualty that they have. So Kingston, this week, went on a ‘life or limb’ protocol which basically means they will still continue to see patients and they’ll certainly consider those life-threatening patients from tertiary or secondary hospitals.”

He explained that if a patient can’t go to Kingston hospital, and needs to be transported by ambulance, they’re going to have to go longer distances.

“This week already we took a patient from Belleville to Brockville, from Bancroft to Oshawa, that would have probably gone to a smaller or a closer hospital.”

He noted that out some operational pressures on the paramedic services because now it takes that ambulance out of this region for longer periods of time. The ambulance that went to Brockville ended up doing a call in both Kingston and Napanee on the way back. He said that affects the ability to do emergency coverage here.

“We’re putting some pressure on both regionally and provincially these (discussion) tables in order to have paramedic representation. So we can help working partnership with the province and these regional authorities to understand the challenges that they’re facing within the hospitals and how that affects community response related to the paramedic service.

Socha pointed out, “About a year ago we were moving patients back and forth from Toronto to free up ICE beds within the GTA. We had the capacity to do that.”

“We now needs those tables (provincial meetings) re-established in order that we can have some coordinated efforts. So that hospitals can appreciate if we’re doing long distance transfers that we need to work locally to maintain coverage within our municipalities”

Warden Rick Phillips commented, “”We now need those tables re-established in order that we can have some coordinate efforts. So that hospitals can appreciate, if we’re doing long distance transfers, that we need to work locally to maintain coverage within our municipalities.”