By Don Peat
Toronto Sun
Copyright 2008 Canoe, Inc.
TORONTO — The frantic calls from Toronto EMS to city hospitals warn again and again there are no ambulances to respond to 911 calls.
In text messages obtained by the Sun, EMS duty officers plead with hospitals to free up paramedics who are sitting with patients waiting to be admitted.
One text message warned two weeks ago that public safety was at risk with paramedics “unable to respond to 911 calls.”
That warning and countless others advising Toronto ERs that ambulance levels are “critically short” and “desperately” low are detailed in edited logs from EMS’ own Patient Distribution System.
At various times of the day and on several days stretching back to last fall, EMS repeatedly asks emergency departments to take in patients waiting at the hospital with paramedics so ambulances so can respond to calls.
The text messages come to light during a dispute between management that says the public should have confidence in EMS to be there in times of emergency and the paramedics union that the system is troubled.
On March 10, an unnamed EMS duty officer warned hospitals that available ambulance levels were gravely low.
“We have three available ambulances in Toronto, we are unable to respond to 911 calls, please offload some crews ASAP,” one message sent just after 10 p.m. reads.
Less than 15 minutes later, the situation gets worse.
“Update, we have no available units in our system,” the next message reads. “We are looking after 40 patients in (emergency department) hallways, please free up some of our resources as public safety is at risk.”
Another message warns of no ambulances available west of Yonge St. while another states there are none south of Eglinton Ave.
“Usually when the duty officers send messages like that to the hospital, we are low ... and the hospitals respond quickly by freeing up ambulances,” EMS spokesman Lyla Miller said yesterday.
Just because no ambulances are available doesn’t mean a life-threatening call wouldn’t be responded to quickly, she said.
“There is always something we can do to respond to a life-threatening call,” Miller said. Dispatchers can pull paramedics off lunch breaks or a response vehicle (an SUV with a single paramedic) can be used to provide initial care until an ambulance arrives, she said.
The paramedic union said the messages are symptoms of an EMS system in trouble.
“This is not a blip on a radar, this is how they run the system all the time,” said Local 416 Ambulance Unit chairman Glenn Fontaine. “They’re playing Russian roulette.
The union called for a major injection of paramedics, saying a lack of ambulances on the road are adding stress to the job, stretching out their 12-hour shifts and robbing them of lunch breaks.