| Feb 22, 2023


Frontenac County announced a $1million investment in paramedic services in the wake of passing their 2023 budget last week, but according to Shauna Dunn, President of OPSEU Local 462, the money is neither new, nor does it address the issues facing the service, and the paramedics who work within it.

She said that the addition of new 12 hour shifts in Kingston on April 1 and October 1 are welcome, but said the increases are not as new as the county said they are.

“The first 12-hour shift, starting in April, has been in the works for years,” she said, “and while the new shift in October is an additional resources, it is paired with a cut in service of 8 hours on Wolfe Island, so the only new funding is for 4 of those 12 hours.”

During her budget presentation to Council on February 8th, Chief of Frontenac Paramedic Services Gale Chevalier provided three options to council regarding the new service. One option was to leave the Wolfe Island service in place, even though Chevalier pointed out that only 6 shifts had actually been staffed on Wolfe Islands in 2022, and none so far in 2023.

The second option was to replace the Wolfe Island service with a regular 12-hour service on Wolfe Island, the same service that is offered at Robertsville for North Frontenac residents, in addition to the new shift in Kingston.

The third option, which was the one that council adopted, was to cut the Wolfe Islands service, and use the savings to fund part of the new shift in Kingston.

In anticipation of enhanced ferry service later this year, council decided to serve Wolfe Island from Kingston. The representatives on Council from Frontenac Islands, in particular Mayor Judy Greenwood-Spears, spoke in favour of creating the 12 hour ambulance instead of cutting the service altogether, but could not sway the other members of council.

Shauna Dunn sent a letter to members of Frontenac County Council on Tuesday, February 14, asking them not to go ahead with the plan to cut the Wolfe Island service.

“I would like to implore Council to reconsider this decision and vote instead to approve the second option, which would see Wolfe Island staffed as a 12hr truck, with the addition of two 12hr trucks in the City of Kingston. I believe that this option would ensure better coverage for the residents of Frontenac County and the City of Kingston, while simultaneously addressing paramedic workload concerns,” she said in her letter.

At the Council meeting on Wednesday, February 15, none of the council members made reference to Dunn’s letter, nor has anyone responded to her after receiving it. OPSEU Local 462 is currently in contract negotiations with Frontenac County, having been without a contract since 2020. A conciliator is involved in the negotiations at this time.

Dunn said that while the new shifts in Kingston are, they do not address the extreme circumstances faced by herself and her fellow paramedics working as paramedics in Kingston and Frontenac County.

“The demand for paramedic services has been steadily rising year after year, with our UHU (Unit Hour Utilization) sitting at over 0.65. We are not meeting our response times and there are Code Zero's occurring on a daily basis, if not, multiple times per day. This is the result of these high call volumes combined with inadequate paramedic resources and offload delays at KHSC - Emergency Department. Regardless of the cause, though, paramedics truly can't keep up with this pace of workload. There are more paramedics off on sick leave and long term disability than ever before, which I believe, is a product of the mental and physical burnout that paramedics are experiencing” Dunn said in her letter.

Unit Hour Utilization refers to the percentage of time paramedics spend actively responding to calls. Dunn told the Frontenac News that the target UHU is 0.35, which, she said, “leaves paramedics with enough time to process and recover from the stress that comes with calls for service, even the ‘normal’ calls carry a fair bit of stress,” she said. “Once UHU is over 0.35, it is recommended that resources be added.”

Code Zero refers to a circumstance where there is one or no ambulances available to respond to emergencies in an urban location?

“The increased call volume is not going away. I can appreciate that Council wants to keep costs down, as much as possible, but I would urge you to ask questions about the other costs related to inadequate staffing levels (i.e. meal break premiums, overtime, sick leave, grievances, Arbitrations, etc.) and evaluate those costs as a whole. It is my belief that these other costs will go down exponentially, if the County addresses the primary problem, which is that we need more paramedics in ambulances sharing the workload of emergency calls,” she said.

Dunn said that the crisis in paramedicine is not just a local issue in Kingston-Frontenac, it is being felt across the Province.

“But some of the other jurisdictions in Ontario are making larger investments than Frontenac County is making,” she said, “and for residents of Frontenac County like myself, the only way our services will be fully available is if there are adequate resources in Kingston. Because we are an integrated service, the Frontenac County trucks will continually be pulled in to Kingston until Kingston is adequately resourced.”

She also said that Frontenac County residents would not have to pay for increases on their own. The province pays 50% of the cost for ambulance service, and ratepayers in the City of Kingston pay about 38%, leaving only 12% to be covered by Frontenac County ratepayers.

The deployment plan that Frontenac County has been following until now, was set in place based on a consultant report in 2019 that projected less growth in ambulance calls than has actually occurred since that time. That report is being updated this year, ahead of schedule.

Even with all the stresses, Dunn, who was seconded to work for OPSEU for 8 months last year, said she is happy to back working as a paramedic, maintaining her union role as a volunteer.

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