Longer ambulance response times are “unacceptable,” an official with the city and county ambulance service has said.
“With increasing service demands utilizing current resources, staff are projecting response time performance will continue to deteriorate,” Guelph Wellington Emergency Medical Service (EMS) chief Stephen Dewar said in a recent report.
“It is staff opinion this degradation of services is unacceptable.”
Wellington County, which has a pay-per-service agreement with the City of Guelph, anticipates it will pay $2.97 million this year for ambulance service, said county treasurer Ken DeHart.
Wellington county paid close to $2.82 million in 2011 and just over $2.76 million in 2012.
Last year EMS responded to 18,377 calls and call volume has increased seven per cent in each of the past two years.
According to Dewar’s report, which was recently presented to the city operations, transit and emergency services committee, a growing population and the number of people with significant illnesses discharged earlier from hospitals, have resulted in the increase in calls and time spent at calls.
The report states patient outcomes are impacted by ambulances experiencing difficulties hitting target response times, which are set by the province. The city has established compliance rates for those times.
The province expects the service to respond within eight minutes to calls requiring resuscitation. The city expects those targets to be met 65 per cent of the time, but Guelph-Wellington EMS is currently hitting 63%.
In the case of cardiac arrest response times, the report found the six minute response time was met 60% of the time, below the 65% approved by Guelph council in 2012.
Eddie Alton, head of the county social services department, referred all inquiries about ambulance response times to city officials.
Attempts to reach city officials were unsuccessful at press time.
“The trends in call volumes and call complexity are expected to continue,” Dewar’s report stated. “The paramedic service will continue to be challenged to meet the targets established for 2013. Best efforts are being made to meet the standards set by council utilizing our current resources, but unfortunately we are falling short.
“Ultimately, staff believe that it is appropriate to reach patients with potentially life threatening emergencies in 10 minutes or less, 90 per cent of the time,” the report acknowledges.
“The required improvement to response time targets or compliance levels would require additional resources. Costs associated with performance enhancement will be presented to the committee in September.
“Staff are not prepared to recommend a reduction of the targets for 2014 to reflect current performance and therefore recommend the targets approved for 2013 be maintained,” the report stated.
“Staff will continue to monitor our performance making a more concerted effort to manage current resources to better achieve our targets.”
