2023-06-29 19:44:35
We only have 15 ambulances. If we have 10 or 12 waiting in the hospital, it’s a huge impact on our services,” says Guelph-Wellington Ambulance Chief Stephen Dewar.
He claims to have seen paramedics spending 12 hours waiting in the emergency room with a patient.
He fears vacations for hospital workers will make wait times worse this summer. I am very worried. It is certain that the availability of staff is a major problem.
Patient turnaround times at Guelph General Hospital are among the longest in Ontario.
Photo : Paula Duhatschek / CBC
The president of the Ontario Association of Paramedic Chiefs, Michael Sanderson, adds that patient care times observed in hospitals are generally higher during the summer holidays.
“I hope the coming summer will be better than last year. »
— A quote from Michael Sanderson, President of the Ontario Paramedic Chiefs Association
In 2022, several paramedic services reported a large number of code zeros, an expression used to mean that no ambulance is available to go to the scene of an emergency.
When no ambulance is available, the paramedic services request the help of paramedics from neighboring regions. A solution that is not ideal because it lengthens response times.
Guelph-Wellington is not the only region affected by the problem. Michael Sanderson says that last March regarding thirty hospitals reported that paramedics waited more than an hour in the emergency room one in ten times. A slight decrease compared to the situation in 2022.
There is no significant improvement provincially, says Michael Sanderson, who is also chief of the Hamilton ambulance service.
Ambulances wait for their patients to be taken to a hospital in Windsor in May 2022.
Photo : @CupeMedics2974 sur Twitter
He still says he is optimistic, pointing out that COVID-19 is having less and less of an impact on hospitals.
According to him, initiatives have also been put in place to improve patient management and the possibilities of receiving treatment online or at home rather than in the hospital.
Overcrowded hospitals
Guelph General Hospital says there are more patients needing admission than before. They often have to wait before receiving care, which clogs up the emergency department.
Other patients may be discharged but continue to occupy a bed because they are waiting for a place in a long-term care facility.
At any one time, 25 to 50 people are in this situation at the Guelph General Hospital, according to the administration.
London hospitals report some of the longest hospital wait times in Ontario.
The London Health Sciences Centre, however, says the wait has been cut in half in one year at University Hospital and Victoria Hospital.
Victoria Hospital is managed by the London Health Sciences Center hospital network.
Photo : Radio-Canada / Paula Duhatschek/CBC
To achieve this, the administration has created a unit that takes care of patients waiting for a bed in order to free up the emergency room of the Victoria Hospital.
Another unit has been set up to take care of patients waiting for a place in a long-term care centre.
Opening hours have also been extended for medical imaging and patient transport services.
Provincial funding
The province says it is tackling the problem by increasing the budget for a program that funds nurses assigned to care for patients arriving by ambulance.
Annual funding has increased from $16 million in 2022 to $33 million this year. Funding that should be maintained in 2024 and 2025, according to the latest provincial budget.
Our government continues to work with Ontario Health, local paramedic services, hospital management and other partners on short- and long-term strategies that increase ambulance availability, adds Hannah Jensen, spokesperson for the Minister of health.
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