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Showing posts with the label Waterloo

911 "beat the queue calls" -- Emergency Room backups

With long line-ups at hospital Emergency Rooms, people are beginning to call ambulances to take them to the ER, hoping the ambulance and paramedics will speed them through the ER.   "We call them beat-the-queue calls," John Prno, regional director of emergency medical services reported. Paramedics have to stay with the patient until they are seen by hospital staff, which reduces  ambulance   availability, the Waterloo Record reports, creating offload delays where paramedics must wait in the hospital rather than save other patients in the community.   Offload delays at Waterloo hospitals increased by 20 per cent in 2011 for a total of 6,990 hours, the equivalent of an  ambulance  parked 24 hours a day for 291 days. The good news?  The number of Code Reds, where no local  ambulances  are available for an emergency call, dropped to 12 per month from an average of one a day in 2010. The EMS director noted that the hiring of  five paramedics last year and another five

No ambulances available for 911 calls

A shortage of hospital beds led to 32 Code Reds in February 2011 in Waterloo Region, The Record reports. "Code Reds" occur when no ambulances are available to take 911 calls. One Code Red lasted four hours on Feb. 14. A shortage of hospital beds is forcing paramedics to wait in emergency rooms to hand over patients to hospital staff, the Record reports. Regional politicians are being asked to hire five more paramedics to improve EMS  response times. In effect, hospital shortages are driving up municipal costs. Waterloo Region ambulances reach 90 per cent of emergencies within 12 minutes and 32 seconds, up 33 seconds over 2010. The legislated response time is 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The Director of the Waterloo EMS told the Record that off load delays fell in October and November after the service started taking patients to a less-busy hospital even if the hospital was not designated for the patient’s symptoms. “It was safer for a patient to be in the wrong hospit

Hospital overcrowding: no ambulances for emergencies in Waterloo

What next? Waterloo Region Emergency Medical Services (EMS) will tell Waterloo Council today that ambulance "off-load delays" at hospitals have resulted in periods where not one ambulance is available for emergency calls.  This has happened between 6 and 17 times a month since July, with these 'code reds' lasting between 14 and 26 minutes.    The complete absence of ambulances is a 'first' according to the Waterloo Record .    Some first.    Worse, the EMS Director reports that the situation worsened in January and February: " The situation is  deteriorating. " The problem has to do with hospital overcrowding.  As in many other parts of the province, EMS paramedics must wait hours to discharge their patients to the Region's three hospital Emergency Rooms.  The Emergency Rooms are often backed up because they cannot find hospital beds for their patients.    Last year, this  resulted in 5,790 lost  ambulance  hours in Waterloo, the eq