The chief of Superior North EMS says both city and province have to do something to solve its offload problem and get paramedics back on the road.
EMS chief Norm Gale presented the 2013-2017 strategic plan to city council on Monday. The plan was presented to give council a chance to look over some of the information. The report outlined some of the main goals the ambulance service wants to improve upon over the next four years.
One of the main points was the offload times at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. The report states internal hospital solutions aren’t working. Offload delays happen multiple times during the day causing paramedics to lose 16 hours daily.
“We want to work provincially and locally to address this problem,” Gale told council.
“It’s not acceptable that there’s any offload delays. Our ambulances and paramedics are on the road to respond to 911 calls not to stand in hallways at the Health Sciences Centre. This is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed.”
Gale said the offload issue is happening to healthcare facility across the North America. Although it isn’t unique to Thunder Bay, the numbers show that the delays in the city are higher on average compared to Ontario, he said.
The report also showed that the demand for ambulance services is going up. Referred to as the “age tsunami”, residents 65 years and older are considered the “super users” of EMS and are driving up demand for ambulance services.
Gale said the demand is increasing by seven per cent each year.
“Despite the ever increasing 911 call volume, we are maintaining or holding on our response times,” he said. “The population in Thunder Bay is aging.”
In order to deal with some of this demand, Gale suggested the restructuring of non-emergent patient transportation.
He said they want to work with other healthcare agencies such as the North West Local Health Integration Network to repair what he called a “fractured system”. Another solution would see one of four ambulances on the north shore dedicated to interfacility transportation.
“The reality is that Superior North EMS is not serving people well in this regard,” he said.
The report will come back to council on March 11.
