Delays in hospitals contributing to lack of available ambulances in Toronto: City staff

On Saturday in Toronto at around 6:30 p.m., there were no available ambulances to respond to calls in the city.

Fire Chief Matthew Pegg, who is also the emergency management director for the City of Toronto, said the delays in hospitals are contributing significantly to the lack of ambulances.

“Over this past weekend, there were times when more than 50 Toronto Paramedic Service ambulances were out of service in hospital waiting to transfer their patients to the care of the hospital,” said Pegg during the COVID-19 update for Toronto Monday.

TPS Unit Local 416 vice-chair Peter Shirer called the lack of ambulances a symptom of a decade-old problem that’s now being exacerbated by Omicron.

Like many other sectors of health care workers, paramedics are also dealing with a high percentage of absences due to the spiking COVID-19 case numbers.

Between Dec. 23 and Jan. 9, Pegg said the unplanned absence rate was 11.9 per cent and Sunday, it was up to 12.8 per cent.

He assured residents there were “strong contingencies” in place to make sure the city remains safe.

Toronto Fire Services are currently responding to low-priority paramedic calls where there is no clear indication of a patient or injury on arrival. Pegg says this works out to about 60 calls over a 24-hour period. If paramedics are needed, they will be called to the incident.

“Higher risk and higher priority calls will always be responded to first before lower risk and lower priority calls. During busier periods, there may be delays in responding to lower-priority calls while we respond to the higher priority,” explained Pegg.

He said they are continually engaging with hospitals to work to quickly release paramedics from hospitals so they are available to respond to other emergency calls.

Pegg also noted that paramedic services don’t have borders and they have been accepting the help of neighbouring paramedics while also assisting them as well.

Multiple other paramedic unions have been reporting critical staff shortages accompanied by other health care worker shortages.

Chief Paul Raftis of the Toronto Paramedic Services Management team also responded to reports that staff were not taking overtime shifts due to exhaustion. He said people are still taking overtime and commended them for their dedication.

“There’s no question that our staff are exhausted … They’ve been working like crazy for the last 22 months absolutely tirelessly and their dedication was so impressive,” said Raftis.

He added paramedic services staff know it is important for people to take a break and they are working closely to everything they can to support them.

“We’re looking at all options to support our paramedics. We have very comprehensive staff support services for our staff, including peer resource team and other supports for them,” said  Raftis.

“These extraordinary times have required extraordinary measures, extraordinary options to be put on the table extraordinary actions to be undertaken,” added Mayor John Tory.