Wolfe Island ambulance service hit hardest by “downstaffing”

Jeff Green | May 11, 2022

Gale Chevalier, the Chief of Paramedic services for Frontenac County, said this week, in an email, that “due to pandemic-related demands these past two-plus years, we have not met our staffing schedule on Wolfe Island as planned.”

She said that “The paramedic base on Wolfe Island is normally scheduled for eight hours of day shift followed by 16 hours of on-call.”

In recent months, Frontenac County Paramedics, which serves a population of close to 170,000 residents of Frontenac County and the City of Kingston, has faced challenges “because paramedics are unavailable to work, due to pandemic illness or isolation requirements. It is an issue affecting paramedic services everywhere,” she said.

This has resulted in “downstaffing”, a circumstance that occurs when a shift in a specific location is not staffed. Eighty five percent of downstaffing has affected the paramedic base on Wolfe Island, Chevalier said, adding that this is being done because call volumes on Wolfe Island are that much lower than they are in the rest of the system.

According to union officials, days when the ambulance shift on Wolfe Island has been staffed have been rare over the past few months.

Chief Chevalier did not provide exact numbers of shifts that have been missed. She talked about making best use of limited resources, however.

Frontenac Paramedics have responded to approximately 150 calls to Wolfe Island per year in each of the last five years. So far this year, there were 14 calls to Wolfe Island in January, 15 in February, one in March, and one in April,” she said. “We are less likely to receive calls there than we are in areas of higher population density. It’s just not safe or fair under pandemic conditions to have a crew sitting idle on Wolfe Island while we are short Paramedic resources in Kingston.”

Frontenac Paramedic Services receives about 23,000 calls per year throughout the entire system.

Dennis Doyle, the Mayor of Frontenac Islands, and current Warden of Frontenac County, reiterated Chief Chevalier’s point.

“When there are shortages, you need to send the services to where they are most needed,” he said. “We do get pretty good service from the ambulance in Kingston, because when there is a call, the ferry will turn around and go back to pick up an ambulance if one is available from the City. The wait times in places like North Frontenac are still higher than ours.”

According to Dave Doran, the Acting President of OPSEU/SEFPO (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) Local 462, which represents the Frontenac Paramedics, the situation on Wolfe Island is not isolated, but is one indication of a staffing shortages that pre-date the impacts of the Omicron COVID wave on the service, and have also had impacts on service throughout Frontenac County, driven by ever increasing call volumes in the City of Kingston.

He said that indicators such as Unit Hour Utilization (UHU), a measure of what percentage of time paramedics spend directly on calls, as well as response time targets for urgent calls, also indicate that the service is over-extended, and has been for a while.

Frontenac County has increased service in Kingston recently, adding a 12-hour ambulance shift in 2021, with another 12-hour shift planned to come on stream in 2023.

And the service has hired 20 new paramedics this month.

But this is not enough, according to Doran.

“The new people who are coming on are only going to cover for shortages and retirements that we are facing already” he said, “and the new service coming on in 2023 is not going to address the situation. The investments in the service need to be larger.”

Doran said that when UHU reaches 0.35, it is considered enough to require additional resources.

“And the UHU is now 0.55”

In the Paramedic Deployment Plan that was presented to Frontenac County Council in March of last year, there were 5 items that were listed as “What we should not compromise” in order to achieve a balance between budgetary limitations and the provision of paramedic services. The first item on the list of things Frontenac Paramedic Services ruled out as a cost saving measure was to compromise “rural service – achieving efficiencies by reducing rural response”. Other cost saving measures that are considered unacceptable include any tht would: slow response times, diver funds from other areas of county responsibility, delay investments in the service, and finall, compromise the health of the paramedics who work for the service. “Increased call volume will have an adverse impact on paramedic health,” the Deployment PLan concludes.

Chief Chevalier said, “Pandemic conditions aside, Frontenac County and Frontenac Paramedics is sticking to its plan to grow Frontenac Paramedics over the coming years as the population in the area, including on Wolfe Island, grows larger and grows older. That plan includes staffing the Wolfe Island base to plan, adding more ambulances, more equipment, more staff, and new facilities. It’s a matter of public record.”

According to Dave Doran, however, the current reality is not just the result of the pandemic, and reflects a long-term problem.

“The staff does not feel supported,” he said, “they are pretty upset about it. It affects the mental well-being of paramedics when we can't respond to calls the way we should. The system needs more resources.”