The Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)
Copyright 2006 Toronto Star Newspaper, Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
BURLINGTON, Canada — Residents in north Burlington must sometimes wait 11 minutes for an ambulance.
That’s two minutes more than the North American standard for response times, which is nine minutes or less 90 per cent of the time.
A new ambulance station under construction on Brant Street, between Highway 407 and Upper Middle Road, will improve response times. The station is expected to open in January and will cost about $900,000.
Halton EMS (Emergency Medical Services) gets about 2,000 calls a year from the north Burlington area.
Currently an EMS crew from either the Aldershot Station or the Creek Way Long-term Care facility provides coverage for north Burlington.
The new station will have one ambulance and provide coverage around the clock, seven days a week. It will be the fourth station in Burlington.
Jim King, director of Halton EMS, said the four stations are placed so that 95 per cent of the population of urban Burlington is within about five minutes’ drive of an ambulance station.
“The quicker we get to people who are having heart issues, shortness of breath, reactions to bee stings or things like that, the better their outcomes are in the hospital,” King said.