What's 10 minutes between friends?

I received a phone call from my partner Darren about something that happened with EMS yesterday and I couldn't believe my ears. It was even in the paper today.

Anyone know what I am talking about? Let me tell. There was a critical shortage of ambulances yesterday because of off load delays. Just so we are all working off the same page, I'll explain. When we take a patient to a hospital ER they remain our responsibility until the Triage Nurse (usually also the Charge Nurse) takes a report, finds a spot for the patient and GETS THEM OFF OUR BED. Doesn't matter why we brought the patient in, we are not available for anything else until this process completes. Even with the patient that has stubbed her toe last week and doesn't think the bruising is going away fast enough (don't laugh, it happens), we must remain with them until the hospital accepts responsibility.

Yesterday for a time in the afternoon it was SO desperate that all fire stations were put on alert, all volunteer stations were manned, and the fire department expanded the types of calls it responds to. Yesterday it was so bad that for a period of 10 minutes, there was NO AMBULANCE in the city available to respond. For anything. Keep in mind if you will that during the early afternoon is when there is a peak number of trucks available. There was 18 transporting ambulances, and 5 single medic response units at that time yesterday. None were available. None. After that 10 minutes, four became free and immediately two of them were sent on calls.

Lets put that into perspective. You are coming back to town from a day trip from say, the Niagara Region. You are in Binbrook on Hwy 56 and you get into an accident, you are in pain but breathing. Time line looks something like this:

1259: Someone calls 911 to report the accident.
1300: Volunteer fire station in Binbrook gets the call, Police are mobile, Ambulance notified but not yet mobile.
1305: Volunteers firefighters arrive at station and respond to call, police on scene, ambulance notified but not yet mobile.
1308: Volunteers firefighters on scene, police doing their bit, ambulance notified but not yet mobile.
1310: Ambulance now mobile from McMaster hospital, on route with lights and sirens blazing.
1335 (ish): Ambulance on scene.

Is that fair to you, the tax payer? The Director of EMS, Mr. Brent Browett was quick to point out that no critical calls happened during that 10 minutes that no ambulance was available. That's only by the grace of God.

Another scenario. What if you take your kids to Tim Hortons for a snack and you are 15 seconds down the street from the Henderson Hospital, and your son starts to choke on a timbit. Any idea what 10 minutes without oxygen does to the heart and brain? Sure, the fire department would have arrived to start CPR on your son and to try and give him oxygen, but they too would have to wait until we arrived. They can't transport patients.

All of the education, training, skills, and experience paramedics have don't mean one damn thing if we can't get there in time. As a community we should be outraged. Livid. Foaming at the mouth, ready to chew nails mad. We should stand up and demand that our representatives (MPP's if you want to know) take serious action.

What should that action be? Do we need more ambulances? Yes we do. First, however we need the hospitals to open the beds they closed to "meet their budgets". With more beds upstairs, patients in the ER that have been admitted can go upstairs, freeing ER beds, which gets us more room to off load and get back on the street.

I've spoken with my MPP, and written my city councilor (he hasn't answered me yet) and I plan to get back in touch with my MPP. This is important, though nobody died yesterday and that's a blessing; what about tomorrow?

Maybe when you're watching someone you love in pain and you're wondering "Where's the damn ambulance?" will it sink in. I hope you never have to experience that. I hope this message goes loud and clear that this is not acceptable. I hope action gets taken. I know that's naive. Realistically, most that hear of this will say "That's too bad, they should do something about that" and move on to the next blog, or the next article.

That's the saddest truth of all
.