🚑🧑⚕️Imagine you’re in medical distress and need an ambulance. You call 911 and, within 15 minutes, paramedics arrive. They put you on a stretcher, load you in, and take you to a hospital. Then you wait. And wait. And wait. [1/10]
https://twitter.com/TheAgenda/status/1463523311074390019
If it takes more than 30 min for hospitals to assume care of a patient from paramedics, that's considered an offload delay. This has become increasingly common in Niagara and throughout Ontario, according to experts. Kevin Smith, @NiagaraEMS chief, calls it a crisis. [2/10] 
Over the past four weeks, 77 per cent of Niagara EMS calls have gone into offload delay (the average time was 90 minutes). In the past seven months, about 349 people stayed on EMS stretchers for four to six hours, and 10 for more than eight. pub-niagararegion.escribemeetings.com/FileStream.ash… [3/10]
President of @OntParamedic, @WiltonDarryl, says it all comes down to one thing: a bed shortage in hospitals. People stay in hospitals longer than necessary because other options — such as long-term care — aren’t available, he explains. [4/10]
In an update to #HamOnt city council, @HPS_Paramedics chief @mcsander1 noted offload delays in Hamilton have shot up since hospitals resumed more operations and public health restrictions eased in the spring. Niagara had the same experience.
hamilton.ca/sites/default/… [5/10]
hamilton.ca/sites/default/… [5/10]
Patients requiring non-urgent care are more likely to have to wait, Sanderson says. Prolonged time on a stretcher can become uncomfortable for patients, he adds, and even simple food requests require hospital-staff approval. Delays also have ripple effects. [6/10]
Call-response times are longer when more first responders are stuck at hospitals. Between Aug. and Oct., #HamOnt paramedics logged 41 “code zeroes,” meaning there were one or no ambulances available to respond. During the same periods in 2020 & 2019, there were four & 13. [7/10]
Offload delays are also stressful for paramedics and can lead to burnout, Sanderson says. Smith links them to increased absence. He says they're costly too, with Niagara is on pace for 20,000 hours of delays this year for a total cost of $2.3 million. [8/10]
Sanderson and Wilton agree funding for care outside hospitals, including LTC and community-paramedicine, is part of the solution. Wilton says setting up alternative destinations for paramedics to take patients to, such as emergency clinics, could also help. [9/10]
Sanderson says systemic changes are needed, but adds that existing operations can be improved with smaller adjustments. For more on those, including comments from the Ministry of Health, @STJOESHAMILTON and @niagarahealth, see the full story here: tvo.org/article/why-pa… [10/10]
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