Brant-Brantford paramedics facing alarmingly high patient off-load times

Numbers have dramatically increased this year, with paramedics facing an average delay of 80 minutes

Hospital off-load times at Brantford General Hospital (BGH) are currently one of the worst in the province, with an average delay of 80 minutes, members of the paramedic services committee heard on Tuesday morning.

“Things have deteriorated to some extent since our last report,” Russell King, chief of paramedic services for Brant-Brantford told the committee.

Off-load times — the time it takes to transfer a patient arriving by ambulance into the hospital’s care — have been an ongoing challenge.

Contributing factors include the influx of new residents in the region, an aging population, and the lack of primary care and urgent care options in the community, a report shared with the committee showed. Persistent staffing challenges at the hospital, combined with systemic challenges such as aging infrastructure and inadequate bed capacity are compounding the problem, the report said.

“Our focus is not blaming the hospital, but we can’t keep doing the same thing, hoping for a different result,” King told The Spectator.

When ambulances are tied up at the hospital, it can contribute to “code zeroes” — when no local ambulance is available to promptly respond to a call — and the need to rely on neighbouring paramedic services, such as Norfolk, Six Nations and Hamilton, King told the committee.

Brant-Brantford had 96 code zeroes in April, King said.

The provincial government contributed nearly $300,000 to the paramedic service to help fund two dedicated off-load nurses, which seemed to help.

The average off-load delay reduced from 58 minutes in 2022 to 48 minutes in 2023, the report showed. However, the numbers have dramatically increased so far this year, with paramedics facing an average delay of 80 minutes — nearly double the average last year, prompting the Ministry of Health to step in to help address the issue, King told the committee.

The Health Ministry’s emergency health services division works with “all hospital and paramedic services to reduce ambulance off-load time across the province,” Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for the minister of health told The Spectator in a statement.

The statement went on to say that a four-part strategy for tackling ambulance off-load times focuses on improving patient flow in hospital and avoiding unnecessary trips to emergency departments.

King told the committee the paramedic service and hospital have also connected with Andrea Ennis, a director at North York General Hospital who has helped hospitals across the province — including Juravinski in Hamilton — to improve their off-load times.

For their part, the hospital has also been candid about challenges they’re facing and, at a presentation to the administration and operations committee on April 16, affirmed their willingness to work with the paramedic service and the Ministry of Health to find shortand long-term solutions.

There are “many reasons” for the delays, and it will take “a collective effort to address this serious issue,” Dr. Somaiah Ahmed, chief and medical director of emergency medicine at BGH, told The Spectator in a statement.

The statement continued to say, “most importantly, our team is actively working in partnership with Russ King and the team at BrantBrantford Emergency Medical Services, the Ministry of Health, and Ontario Health on this critical issue … I know our shared goal is to provide quality and timely care to our patients.”

‘‘ Our focus is not blaming the hospital, but we can’t keep doing the same thing, hoping for a different result.

RUSSELL KING CHIEF OF PARAMEDIC SERVICES FOR BRANTBRANTFORD