Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Service was in a dire situation on Saturday as ambulances were gridlocked outside the Guelph General Hospital due to offload delays.

Around 4:20 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20, the service declared a “code red.” An alert that is issued when there are no available ambulances left to respond to calls.

Guelph Wellington Paramedic Service Deputy Chief Leanna Swantko confirmed the code red lasted for about twenty minutes.

“It doesn’t seem like a significant amount of time, but what folks don’t appreciate is leading up to the code red is another code that we call the code yellow. And we start calling that when we are in the urban area of Guelph for us – two ambulances or less. And the same count up in the county – two ambulances or less. So we could be sitting in a code yellow with one ambulance in town for a long time covering 26,000 square kilometres,” said Swantko.

This is the latest in a string of code red calls for the service so far this year.

“We had 25 in 2022 – doesn’t seem like a lot. But for us, if I can compare that to data even three years ago I’d say maybe I had code red four times in a whole year and maybe they lasted one or two minutes for a brief moment when we peaked our call volume and we didn’t have anyone available,” Swantko explained. “What I’m seeing in July – 11 Code Reds, the longest one lasting an hour and ten minutes.”

She said a code red situation can carry serious implications for patients, but it also carries a heavy emotional burden for the paramedics involved.

“And our paramedics still, although they have been facing a tremendous amount of stress with their call volumes and changes in processes under COVID – they still have so much compassion and empathy for their patients. So they’re watching their patients in hallways, not able to access the care they need further compounded by listening to ambulance calls coming on their radios that we simply don’t have an ambulance able to respond to that. That scenario for the paramedic working their shift to endure has just been so tough on our staff.”

She says some paramedics are staying at hospitals for up to 12 hours at a time, waiting for patients to be admitted.

A SYSTEM IN CRISIS

Swantko said there are several factors that are contributing to the stress on the paramedic system.

“The offload delays essentially what has happened there is the hospital staffing levels have reached crisis levels so they can’t staff the beds they have available and the paramedic services have been used as a temporary solution to that by having paramedics manage patients in hallways until there is a hospital bed available.”

Swantko said staffing issues are also having an impact, despite recruitment efforts earlier this year. She said paramedics are logging many hours of overtime and taking on addition shifts to try to help bridge the gap, but the extra work and emotional toll is contributing to staff burn-out.

However, she notes this is not purely a staffing problem among the paramedic service.

It’s been thrown to us – if we had money and we could spend it any way we could what would we do? Would we add paramedics and ambulances? Well, I’ll always say we could use more paramedics, and I will take a truck at any time, but the specific incident that happened on the 20th is really related to the increase in call volume, the scenario at the hospital not being able to move patients to hospital beds, and just being able to manage that system issue is our greatest challenge today. Providing more paramedics is just going to add another ambulance to the hallway.”

She adds, “I’ve never seen this system quite as in crisis as it is today.”

UNPRECEDENTED CALL VOLUMES

Along with the staffing issues and lengthy hospital offload times, the service is also contending with unprecedented call volumes.

“We are also seeing a lot of very sick patients needing to get into the Emergency Department, whether they are being treated for strokes, whether they are being treated for heart attacks, there is a significant call volume of very sick patients that are also impacting the hospitals.”

The change is prompting a plea from paramedic services: consider your options before calling 911. Swantko encourages everyone to assess their medical needs and consider alternatives to calling an ambulance.

“You will not get seen quicker if you call 911. The ambulance does not jump the queue. It’s patient condition and acuity that determines if they are going in the back hallway or if they are going to get seen right away.”

Anyone experiencing a medical emergency is still urged to call the emergency service for immediate assistance.