Gates asks province to help paramedic service
Wayne Gates says it should be up to the provincial government to provide Niagara Emergency Medical Services with the resources it needs to deal with an overwhelming number of calls.
The province, Gates said, has a “duty and a responsibility to ensure that residents have access to health care.”
The Niagara Falls MPP was at Queen’s Park Thursday discussing the “EMS crisis we’re facing,” and telling members of the legislature that while he has the “highest respect” for local paramedics, “no matter how hard they’re working, they can’t keep up with this system.”
“Perhaps even worse, when they get to the hospital, the hospital is too packed to admit the patients they’re carrying,” Gates said in a news release, referring to offload delays paramedics have had to contend with while delivering patients to emergency departments.
Niagara EMS this week reported spending a total of 15,438 hours waiting outside local hospitals on offload delay last year — the most accumulated hours on record.
EMS Chief Kevin Smith told regional councillors that paramedics have developed a plan to help deal with the challenges, and asked council for about $ 1.16 million to hire additional staff to implement that strategy. Smith said annual emergency calls for paramedics are expected to exceed 100,000 within nine years.
Gates said he agrees with comments made by some regional councillors during the meeting, who suggested asking the provincial government for funding.
“The province has a duty and a responsibility to ensure that the residents have access to health care, which is a right in this country,” he said. “That means our first responders need to have the support they need to do their jobs properly. Our EMS responders are working with Brock University and Niagara College to explore ways to make treating patients better.”
Smith told councillors Niagara EMS has been working with Brock and McMaster universities, as well as Sheffield University in England, to develop a unique strategy for delivering services.
Gates said the cost of implementing the EMS plan shouldn’t be on Niagara’s back.
“The province can and should lead on this,” he said, adding it needs to make sure our EMS workers aren’t overworked.
Referring to reports about a Sudbury hospital that was forced to use a bathroom as a patient recovery room due to a shortage of acute care beds, Gates said the province needs to ensure that “not one person in this province has to get care in a washroom, hallway or broom closet.”
“They need to make sure our EMS workers aren’t overworked. Simply put, health care is a right in Ontario. That means access to health care is a right, too, and right now this government is failing to make that a priority,” he said.