Like other areas of health care, paramedic systems across the province are under intense pressure.
Hastings Quinte Paramedic Services Deputy Chief Mike Slatter says there are several reasons for the strain on the local system, starting with a shortage of paramedics and a large geographical region to cover.
Several municipalities have reported that there are times this summer when they have no ambulances available to respond to calls.
Slatter says while the situation here is perhaps not quite as dire as some other places, it does happen.
However, It is hard to track.
“It’s very difficult to track because, while it does happen, it’s not really a prolonged period of time so it might be, you know, two or three minutes in a given day and there’s no real, you know, rhyme or reason when it’s going to happen.”
Another major problem paramedic services across the province are experiencing is paramedics being held up by offload delays – where they need to wait at the hospital with a patient until they are seen.
Slatter says offload delays are an issue here but are not a daily occurrence.
“We don’t run into the same issues as the larger centres where they be might six or seven or eight hours. On average when we do run into days where we have offload delay, it’s usually 30 minutes to an hour. Right now we see it happening two or three times a week consistently where we might run into offload delays.”
Slatter says there are strategies being introduced to try to take the pressure off the system.
Those include a fit to sit program where paramedics can leave some stable patients to wait in the ER.
They also have ways of working around offload delays.
“We do some redistribution so if we have several vehicles at Belleville General that are on offload delay we might start taking patients over to Trenton hospital to help clear them up sooner because we find that, even though we might be driving further, by the time we get to Trenton and if we offload right away then we can actually have the vehicle back in the community sooner.”
He estimates that Hastings Quinte Paramedic Services could use at least another 20 paramedics.
Slatter commends the work of local paramedics saying response times are remaining relatively stable despite the pressures they are facing.
