Community paramedics are ‘unsung heroes’
Wainfleet’s most vulnerable benefit from one-on-one care
Victor Svob’s mind was becoming clouded. He was acting erratically, and he believed people were stealing his stuff.
He wandered, dangerously so. Victor disowned most of his family — suspicion spurred on by creeping dementia that was taking over his 92-year-old brain.
His family members were worried sick that something very bad was going to happen to the old man, who became increasingly isolated in his Wainfleet home.
But they knew someone had their back — actually, three people: Darren Vanderlee, Dan Beauparlant and Danny Favero.
The three paramedics with Niagara Emergency Medical Services, the face of Wainfleet’s unique community response unit, played a pivotal role in ensuring Victor’s wellbeing was protected until his family could finally get him into secure longterm care where he could be kept safe and live out his remaining years in a caring environment.
Sherry Rusin said Victor — her grandfather — became known as the “crazy old man with two canes” who was often seen hitchhiking on the country roads of Wainfleet.
After watching his mental health steadily deteriorate, Victor’s wife Phyllis was desperate to get him into a retirement home by January of this year — something he steadily refused to do.
Rusin said the stress was taking a heavy toll on her grandmother.
“Her health and wellbeing were very much deteriorating,” Rusin said. “It was killing her.”
Phyllis tried to have doctors encourage Victor to move to a retirement home. He wouldn’t have it.
“He believed they were in cahoots with the retirement homes to make money from him,” said Rusin.
On Jan. 19, Phyllis took a gamble she hoped would force Victor to change his stubborn ways: she left her home of 70 years and moved into a retirement home, hoping he’d follow.
Victor stayed put. He refused the help of others. His distrust grew.
In February he was admitted to hospital for erratic behaviour but then released. The province revoked his licence, but he continued to drive — a danger to himself and other residents, said Rusin.
So his family had his car removed. Undeterred, Victor took to hitchhiking.
“He also decided he could cross the road without looking both ways,” said Rusin. “Numerous people witnessed him almost being hit.”
That’s when the community paramedics came in.
Wainfleet’s community paramedic program was launched close to six years ago, originally in reaction to unacceptably long response times for ambulances to get to the remote community.
The sparsely populated municipality simply doesn’t have enough demand to warrant the cost of having an ambulance stationed there, but Mayor April Jeffs said in 2012 that people were worried by response times that EMS chief Kevin Smith said at the time were well above what they should be.
So the region, which operates the paramedic service, launched the community program, in which advanced-care paramedics operate a modified vehicle out of a township fire hall, 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
Beauparlant and Vanderlee — who replaced Favero when he went back to a traditional ambulance crew in May — respond to 911 emergency calls as an initial first response, stabilizing patients as needed until an ambulance crew arrives.
But the program is also part of expanding efforts by EMS to help vulnerable people, including seniors with complex health conditions such as heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes, who are frequent callers of 911 who devour ambulance and hospital emergency resources.
The region has poured ever more resources into its paramedic service in recent years, adding new ambulances and paramedic crews in 2014, 2015 and 2016, at a cost of millions of dollars.
But 911 call volumes continue to soar. Niagara EMS chief Kevin Smith said earlier this year that 911 calls that have increased by 45.6 per cent since 2011, to just over 60,000 a year now, and projections show the annual number reaching about 105,000 in the next decade. He called that “staggering.”
It makes alternative approaches to the traditional paramedic model all the more important.
The Wainfleet paramedics, when not responding to emergency calls, make regular wellness visits to vulnerable seniors, doing everything from checking blood sugar or blood pressure levels to inquiring if medications are being taken as prescribed.
“It can mean anything from holding their hand and a quick cup of coffee to running their vitals,” said Vanderlee.
With Victor, visits that at first were infrequent gradually became daily as his condition worsened.
“They gained his trust,” said Rusin. When people called police about an old man hitchhiking, the paramedic on duty would rush to meet the cruiser and reassure Victor until his brother could come to take him home, she said.
“When he was irate, erratic, they were able to talk to him and calm him down,” she said.
In Victor’s home, help involved anything from fixing his remote control to changing the batteries in his hearing aid, said Vanderlee. “These guys did a marvellous job.”
Victor’s family was finally able to get him into the region’s T. Roy Adams dementia care centre in St. Catharines, then into the region’s Woodlands of Sunset long-term care home on the Welland-Pelham border.
Vanderlee said the peace of mind for family members in knowing a loved one is being cared for by community paramedics can be profound.
“The greatest thing is that a family member can go to work and not worry because a community paramedic is there,” he said. “There’s a responsible, compassionate person there making sure they’re OK.”
On his cellphone, Vanderlee proudly shows a photo of him when he had just started in his role as a community paramedic. He’s holding the hand of 98-yearold Wainfleet resident Josephine Horner, who gets regular visits from the paramedics.
Veda Horner, her daughter, works full time and has a parttime grooming business, so it’s a relief knowing the paramedics are with her mom on a regular basis, checking her blood pressure and her blood sugar level. “They’ll spend time and talk to her,” she said. “She just loves when they drop by.”
In January, Josephine was spending more and more time in bed. “I couldn’t get her up,” said Veda. Rather than call 911, she called the paramedics, and Beauparlant showed up.
He got Josephine up, but she almost collapsed. He took her sugar blood reading and it was very low.
Josephine, as is typical, tried to fight going to the hospital. But Beauparlant insisted.
“He said, ‘We can’t fool around with this. I’m calling them, and you’re going,’” said Veda.
Because of that, Josephine’s medications were adjusted, and all is well now, said Veda.
“We’re very fortunate to have them,” she said. “It’s nice to have that backup.”