New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

New: Facebook has blocked all Canadian news. Join our mailing list to stay in the loop.

Ambulance_run_Smoothly

Feature Article January 29

Feature Article January 29, 2004

LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb Home

Contact Us

County run ambulance system running smoothly Carby

The County of Frontenac began direct management of the land ambulance system for the County and the City of Kingston on January 1, and so far the transition has been seamless, and was done within the costing estimates we had developed, according to Shawn Carby, Director of Emergency Services for the County.

As to the net budgetary effect of running the system in-house, as opposed to under service contracts as was done in the past, Carby said it was too early to predict.

One measure the County will be taking starting this week is the extension of what is called the Minimum Emergency Coverage (MEC) protocol. Previously, ambulances were required to do what are called non-emergent transfers on demand. These are transfers of patients from one hospital to another, and from hospital to homes.

Starting last May, the County decided to institute a discretionary element to this system with the MEC plan, whereby the ambulance service could look at the overall available resources at the time, and delay doing a transfer if they felt the ability to respond to emergencies would be compromised. The program was instituted on weekends on May 1, and it will be extended to Mondays and Tuesdays on February 1. Wednesdays and Thursdays will be added on March 1, and the MEC will be in effect all the time as of April 1.

Statistics gathered by the ambulance service since May show an overall decrease in the number of weekend ambulance calls, but also shows an increase in emergency calls and a decrease in the number of times an outside ambulance service, from Lanark, Lennox & Addington or elsewhere, has been called in to cover for an ambulance shortage in Frontenac County and Kingston.

This information supports the claim by the County Ambulance administration that the MEC system will allow for a better allocation of ambulance staff and equipment in the hope of providing improved emergency service and lowering response times.

The delay in implementing the system, which was originally slated to take effect seven days a week back on May 1, 2003, was decided upon at the request of the Health Care Network of south-eastern Ontario, who asked for time to try and put alternative arrangements in place. As recently as January 6, the Health Care Network was requesting the implementation be delayed until they could develop and secure funding for a new system.

County Council, at their January 21 meeting, decided to bring in the MEC, phasing it in over three more months to give a bit more time to the Health Care Network, but closing the door on any further delays.

According to Shawn Carby, other county-run Ambulance services in Ontario are watching this situation and preparing to do the same thing the County of Frontenac has done in the near future.

It is hoped that this move, along with other efficiency measures, will enable the ambulance service to lower response times. Response times for emergency calls throughout the County have remained at just over 15 minutes since 2001. In the area covered by the Parham Ambulance Service, (now the Parham base of the Frontenac County Ambulance) they were at around 30 minutes in 2003. The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care has established a goal of just under 27.5 minutes for Parham and under 13.5 minutes for the County as a whole.

One new feature that might help response times is the ability to plot the locations of ambulances on an electronic map at all times. This is coming into service in the near future.

Meanwhile, the cars have new logos, the uniforms have new crests and the paramedics have shiny, new, high-visibility coats; but the ambulance service is basically staffed by the same people working out of the same bases as in the past, and that must be satisfying to County politicians and administrators who made the decision to defy pressure from the City of Kingston and take control over the County Land Ambulance service.

With the participation of the Government of Canada