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City cleared to add two ambulance shifts to their operations

Greater Sudbury’s elected officials unanimously approved a business case during the first day of budget deliberations on Wednesday to add two full-time ambulances to frontline paramedic operations, seven days per week
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Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre, pictured during Wednesday’s finance and administration committee, introduced the successful business case to add two 12-hour ambulance shifts to the city’s frontline paramedic services.

With city paramedic services shortcomings “getting worse,” the city’s elected officials approved the addition of two 12-hour ambulance shifts to their operations.

Ward 6 Coun. René Lapierre pre-empted the city council's debate by submitting questions to the city about ambulance services to make the case, which were answered online

The ask for additional ambulances isn’t a want, Lapierre clarified to his colleagues, it’s “required.”

“It’s not one silver bullet that will fix the entire problem,” he said, adding that resolving paramedics services shortcomings will require a “multi-faceted approach.”

The addition of two 12-hour ambulance shifts per day is a “capacity builder” to help fill a growing staffing need, city Fire and Paramedic Services Chief Joseph Nicholls said.

“There are many operational challenges facing delivery of paramedic services in this city,” he said. “The data says they are all getting worse.”

Last year, local paramedics skipped approximately 20 per cent of their half-hour meal breaks, which was an increase from the 15 per cent reported in 2021. 

Speaking as a former paramedic, Ward 5 Coun. Mike Parent said, “It’s not a profession where you want to be overworked, not having had your meal and then running to the next call.”

Skipped meals can be partly explained by the fact that call volume is up by more than 17 per cent over the past four years, Nicholls said.

Another factor is that ambulance offload delays at the hospital are on the rise.

An ambulance offload delay is a delay in transfer of patients between paramedics and emergency room nursing staff. 

Paramedics have been dealing with the delays since 2005, and Nicholls said the issue has been getting worse. Last year, paramedics spent 3,881 hours on ambulance offload delays at Health Sciences North, which is an increase of 5.5 per cent compared to 2021.

This is the equivalent of a crew being stuck at the hospital for 12 hours per day, every day, Nicholls said.

Although Nicholls pointed to various efforts to mitigate these impacts, including a nurse stationed at the hospital for 12 hours per day to take on less acute patients, and ongoing advocacy for provincial funding for other initiatives, Nicholls said, “the pressures continue.”

Another factor affecting local paramedics is that approximately 11 per cent of their call volume consists of non-urgent interfacility transports, which Nicholls said they’ve been trying to get the province to handle so they can focus solely on emergency calls.

“When we’re using our local emergency resources to take patients home to Elliot Lake, to Parry Sound and North Bay and the Island at night, when we’re at our most vulnerable in terms of lower resources, it increases risk.”

All of these situations have combined to create a situation in which ambulances are occasionally not available for emergency calls.

Last year, there were 143 “code red” episodes where no ambulances were available, averaging approximately 32 minutes each. This left a total service gap of approximately 76 of last year’s 87,600 service hours.

The addition of two 12-hour ambulance shifts, he said, will help fill this gap. 

They will be stationed in the city’s downtown core and represent an additional 24 hours of vehicle coverage daily, totalling 8,760 vehicle hours and 17,520 staffing hours annually.

The city’s current daily paramedic staffing-hour total is 480, and the two additional crews will increase it by 48 to 528.

The addition of the two shifts carries a 2023 tax levy impact of just greater than $1 million, which bumps up this year’s levy increase by 0.33 per cent.

Wednesday’s committee decision was unanimous, excluding Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc and Ward 3 Coun. Gerry Montpellier, who did not attend the meeting. The decision was ratified following the second and final budget meeting on Thursday.

Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.


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Tyler Clarke

About the Author: Tyler Clarke

Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
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