Hospital staff shortages could delay Toronto paramedic responses to low-priority calls: City

City of Toronto staff say they are temporarily changing how emergency services are responding to calls in response to COVID-related hospital staffing shortages.

According to a statement issued Wednesday morning, residents were told that responses by paramedics to low-priority calls might be delayed during busier times as crews tend to high-priority calls.

Officials said with paramedics having to wait in emergency departments across Toronto in order for patients to be accepted by the staff on duty, efforts have been underway to cut the time crews are being kept at hospitals.

The statement said Toronto firefighters will now be responding to calls “where there is no clear indication of a patient or injury identified during the call-taking process.” It said if there is a patient that requires medical care, firefighters will have to call on paramedics to assist.

Kim McKinnon, a spokesperson for Toronto Paramedic Services (TPS), recently told CityNews crews are facing “significant” delays and that other services across the province are facing similar issues.

“TPS proactively monitors these pressures in real-time and takes action to reduce the impact on our service,” she said, citing examples where paramedic supervisors will be deployed to emergency rooms to “assist in expediting” transferring patients to hospital staff.

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“Residents should always call 911 when they or someone they know is facing a life-threatening medical emergency like shortness of breath, chest pain, or signs of a stroke.”

Meanwhile, the City of Toronto also announced other municipal staff members are being shifted from their normal duties to assist with the local response to the pandemic and the push to administer first, second and third COVID-19 vaccine doses.

CityNews contacted representatives for all the hospitals in Toronto with emergency rooms to ask what is being done to respond to the issues raised about hospital staff shortages and offloading delays experienced by the Toronto Paramedic Service.

Gillian Howard, the vice-president of public affairs and communications for University Health Network (which oversees Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital), said all hospitals are seeing staff members test positive for COVID-19 or family members of staff members are testing positive.

“Most cases we are having reported are community and household exposures. Because emergency rooms serve many, many people who are immune-compromised, anyone who is positive – whether staff or another patient — poses a high risk of transmitting COVID,” she said, adding the organization is trying to address offloading times.

“Paramedics cannot leave until the care of the person they are caring for is transferred to the hospital.”

At William Osler Health System (the organization that oversees Etobicoke General Hospital), spokesperson Catalina Guran said they use “focused strategies” to try to address offload issues such as a dedicated nurse solely responsible for transferring care.

“However, with the Omicron variant spreading rapidly in our communities, this is a dynamic situation and we are grateful to our dedicated staff, physicians and volunteers, for doing everything they can to care for our community,” she told CityNews in a statement.

Anne Marie Flanagan, a spokesperson for North York General, said in a statement hospital staff have been working to keep offload delays to a minimum, adding they been among the quickest institutions in the past several years at transferring.

“This is a complex system and there are many factors that influence offload times including volume, prioritization, flow and throughput for admissions. Staffing can certainly have a significant impact on all of these factors,” she wrote.

“Like all hospitals, we have been experiencing staffing challenges which have been exacerbated by the current amount of community transmission of Omicron. Despite these challenges, we have so far kept offload times relatively low.”

CityNews also contacted the Ontario Ministry of Health to ask what is being done at the provincial level to assist, but a response wasn’t immediately available at the time of publication.