Changes coming for Niagara EMS
By shifting its focus towards prevention, Niagara Emergency Medical Services hopes to reduce the overwhelming number of calls it receives.
“The traditional way of responding to calls is going to change,” said Niagara EMS Chief Kevin Smith.
Smith said paramedics currently “bring patients to the hospital to see if they need to go to the hospital.”
“That’s not good service … and it’s certainly not a good contributor to the entire health system when you think of the challenges of health care delivery,” he said.
Annual calls for Niagara paramedics have increased by 19,347 since 2011, and by 2027 it is expected to exceed 100,000 calls.
As a result, a report on changes to the delivery of services presented at Tuesday’s Niagara Region public health committee meeting says the current system is not sustainable unless changes are made in the way Niagara EMS operates.
While initiatives including the Regional Community Paramedicine Program and regional community paramedic have helped reduce call volumes, public health committee members gave paramedics approval to begin working to implement additional initiatives.
Among those initiatives is a plan to no longer immediately respond to unknown 911 calls, which could reduce calls by about 1,262 a year.
That change, however, could “create a perception of a heightened risk” in the community, Smith said.
A question from Niagara Falls Coun. Bob Gale illustrated that perception.
“I want to make sure that if a person who has a gun to their head in their house, and dials 911 but the phone goes dead, people are still coming,” Gale said.
“Or if they’re in the water and with their last breath they dial 911, and the phone goes dead you’re still coming?”
“Police are still going,” Niagara’s medical officer of Health Dr. Valerie Jaeger told him. “It’s the police who count the most because they’re going to go in first.”
Although paramedics won’t go until they’re needed, Smith said police officers will respond to unknown 911 calls.
Most of the time paramedics are not needed, and if paramedics are the first to arrive they cannot take action anyway, until police arrive to assess the situation, he added.
“We are very excited with the vision being proposed and we would like to see all of this and more actually initiated,” Smith said.
“There are items that we can absolutely move forward on right away … It does take a bit more consultation with partners involved, particularly with our allied agencies. It does change the dynamics of how we respond collectively as mutual agents.”
Smith said police and fire services, however, are “eager to move this forward.”
He said provincial government approval will be required for some of the changes being considered.
“Some of it might require loosening up legislation that restricts our ability to do certain things, but the signal from them at this point is we have full co-operation.”