WELLINGTON COUNTY – Guelph Wellington Paramedic Service says it saw an increase in emergency call volumes in 2022, surpassing 30,000 calls, representing an eight percent increase over 2021 responses.
According to a 2022 data review report the higher call volumes along with hospital offload delays have led to higher response times to emergency calls.
In a report to be made on Wednesday to the county’s social services committee GWPS chief Stephen Dewar said through 2022 the service responded to calls that were triaged as potentially life-threatening in an average of 8 minutes and 8 seconds, and in 90% of cases within 14 minutes.
Dewar notes these times are higher than in 2021 where the service’s average response time was 7 minutes and 39 seconds and in 90% of cases was 12 minutes and 36 seconds.
Dewar also says that offload delays at hospital emergency departments are also a significant factor in the increasing response times.
“Our paramedics were required to stay in the hospital to care for our patients for almost 11,000 hours in 2022, more than double the number of hours in 2021.”
Dewar says they continue to work with local hospitals and with the other paramedic services provincially to find solutions to the hospital offload issue.
“The impacts of this increase in call volumes have been somewhat offset by an incremental increase in staffing that has been approved for our service in successive budget years. This includes a recently approved increase of four paramedics and two supervisors added by Guelph City Council in the City’s 2023 budget confirmation.” Dewar said.
Read full report here.
