No Durham Region ambulances available for emergency calls twice in 2 days
Posted August 10, 2022 5:52 pm.
Last Updated August 10, 2022 7:15 pm.
During two different times in as many days, the Region of Durham Paramedic Services made “code zero” declarations because no ambulances were available to respond to emergency calls.
“Obviously, this is very serious because if you’re someone who is having a stroke, a heart attack or another medical emergency, when you call 911 there won’t be an ambulance available to immediately come to your house,” Niko Georgiadis, the paramedic representative with CUPE Local 1764, told CityNews on Wednesday.
“If there is someone who has fallen and has a broken hip and they need to be taken to the hospital, any said type of delay in those medical emergencies is detrimental to patient care so things like that are always a risk to public safety.”
In tweets posted by union officials, they said the ‘code zeroes’ were issued at 6:12 p.m. on Monday and at around 12:45 p.m. on Tuesday. However, the issue isn’t new for Durham Region and for months, the union has posted similar updates.
“’Code zeroes’ have always been occurring. What we’re seeing now, though, is the frequency and duration of them has been increasing,” Georgiadis said.
He said the problem is fuelled by not enough paramedics and delays in transferring patients to doctors and nurses at hospitals, which have also been hit hard.
“When we have the increase in offload delays that we’re currently seeing as well as the call volume from paramedic services that are increasing, it kind of works in a perfect storm in which it doesn’t allow enough ambulances to be on the road,” he said.
RELATED: Toronto Paramedic Services facing staff crisis, union head says
“We’re either at the hospital on offload or we’re servicing calls on the road and there are just not enough staff available to service this ever-growing call volume.”
Another issue, Georgiadis said, is not enough dedicated resources aimed at treating patients outside of hospitals. He pointed to a current temporary program that sees paramedics who go to home to help care for those with non-urgent health needs and some who call 911 for help repeatedly.
“Due to a lack of community supports, people kind of rely on the 911 system to fill in those gaps,” Georgiadis said.
Permanent provincial funding for the program hasn’t been secured yet.
“On its own, it will not address the offload delay issue or the other system issues the health care system is facing,” John Riches, the deputy chief of Region of Durham Paramedic Services, told CityNews.
He said hospital delays are the biggest factor impacting his service and many others across Ontario right now. Riches said he and other municipal officials have been advocated hard for action to fix hospital offload procedures and delays.
“All the paramedic services are concerned about offload delay. It is probably the biggest system pressure we have on operations,” he said.
Region of Durham Paramedic Services has 32 ambulances and crews on the roads during the day at peak times. They are responsible for a vast area, one that stretches between Lake Ontario and the southeast part of Lake Simcoe.
He said during a shift, there could be up to 15 ambulances and crews stuck in hospital corners waiting for patients to be offloaded.
“We are deeply concerned when we have reduced ambulances in the community, it is a significant concern and a public safety risk,” Riches said.
The aim for paramedic services in Ontario is to provide seamless coverage, so in the event a local ambulance isn’t available a crew from a nearby municipality can be called in. However, Georgiadis questioned what would happen if other services are low on available ambulances given the current overall health care system situation.
“It’s just not fair to the public, to the taxpayer and to the communities that we service,” he said.
With the most recent ‘code zeroes’ on Monday and Tuesday, he said there were no delays for the highest-priority calls. But for the lower-priority calls, patients had to wait.
“That is not something we want to see, and it’s not sustainable in the long-term,” Riches said.
“If you’re having a heart attack or you’re having a stroke or a significant traumatic event, absolutely call 911 and we will respond – please have faith in that.
“But if there are situations in which you can access health care through different means for lower-acuity issues … that would help as well, that would reduce pressure on the 911 system.”
RELATED: Toronto Paramedics 911 centre can face wait times up to 8 minutes due to short-staffing
Riches said since 2016, the service has increased the number of staffed hours by 19 per cent while there has been an increase in call volume by 15 per cent and an increase in offload delays by nearly 28 per cent.
He said 36 part-time paramedics have just been hired along with four full-time paramedics. But not all of those employees are new as some are replacing paramedics who retired, resigned or moved on to other positions.
John Henry, the chair and CEO of the Region of Durham who also served as the mayor of Oshawa, said paramedic crews were busy responding to a trench rescue in Ajax Monday evening and that was a factor in coverage. He went on to say the service wasn’t in a “code zero” for an extended period of time. But despite that, he said the need for improvements are there.
“Our management team, our chief and our deputy chiefs are working hard to make sure we maintain our teams here, to keep them informed of what’s going on. Our [chief administrative officers] in the GTHA (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area) are meeting to talk about this issue of offloading, it’s not a new issue and it’s been something that’s been ongoing for some time,” Henry said, adding meetings with MPPs and health officials happen regularly.
“Paramedics need to be on the road … having them at hospitals for five to six hours isn’t the solution to the long-term health challenges we’re having here in Durham and across the GTHA.”
CityNews contacted the Ontario Ministry of Health on Tuesday to ask for an update on the latest issue facing paramedics, but a response wasn’t received as of Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, Georgiadis said his members continue to see negative mental health impacts and are fighting fatigue from heavy workloads.
“It’s a difficult profession to be in especially in the past two or three years where we’ve had COVID, we’ve had now the staffing crisis at the hospital and now we’ve had these code zeroes, it does weigh on you every day you go into work,” he said.
