EDMO EMS Staffing Crisis Continues
Things are still not going well for paramedics. We continue to struggle with low staffing, lack of resources and a collapsed healthcare system that can't provide the care the public deserves. Watching patients needlessly suffer is becoming a daily occurrence. We wanted to highlight a recent event that demonstrates how dire and unacceptable the current situation is. Keep in mind, this is not a one-off rare event. Situations like this happen dozens of times every day but our management and the UCP will never acknowledge this reality. Acknowledging these problems and taking ownership of their failures gets in the way of congratulatory backslapping and wasting money on restructuring the healthcare system.
Earlier this week, we only had 75% of our ambulances staffed and there were frequently no units available in the city. At one point there were 19 pending 911 calls waiting for ambulances to be attached. We were struggling so badly to keep up with call volume that supervisors were instructed to encourage paramedics to leave patients at the triage desk or in the waiting room even if it was "questionable". This is consistent with our management's mentality of treating every day like a mass casualty incident and this is not normal. We cannot accept this as normal. We are speaking out to show what happens when this becomes the new normal.
We have confirmed the following timeline and sequence of events from this night to show how badly our EMS system failed to provide the necessary coverage to the community we serve:
- At 01:07 Edmonton Fire Department is dispatched for a structure fire and arrived almost immediately on scene due to being well resourced and well distributed throughout the city.
- At 01:08, EMS dispatch tells EFD dispatch that they are looking at up to 45 min wait for an ambulance due to lack of EMS resources.
- At 01:09, a lone PRU (solo paramedic in a SUV, cannot transport any patients) is able to clear the event they are currently on to respond to the fire. Still no transport ambulances available. During this time EFD is fighting an active fire without an EMS safety net. This is putting the firefighters at risk.
- At 01:18, PRU arrives on scene and at the same time EFD pulls a person in cardiac arrest from the building. PRU starts working a cardiac arrest with no other paramedics on scene. Still no ambulance available. The PRU paramedic requested an ambulance be dispatched immediately and an ambulance became available and was dispatched.
- At 01:20, a second ambulance is dispatched.
- At 01:23, a second patient is found in cardiac arrest and brought out by EFD, still no ambulances on scene.
- At 01:28, ambulances finally arrive, a full 20 minutes into the event. Prior to this, ONE SOLO PARAMEDIC WAS MANAGING 2 CARDIAC ARRESTS BY THEMSELVES.
A cardiac arrest should have a minimum of 1 ambulance attached. This event last night should have had at least 2 ambulances immediately dispatched in addition to any PRU response. Every second counts in a cardiac arrest and very specific treatments need to be administered at specific time intervals to give the best chance of survival. A delay in care like we saw last night is catastrophic for patient outcomes.
This is a tragedy. Every member of the public needs to understand that this could have been them or their loved one. Edmonton does not currently have an EMS system that is capable of reliably responding to pre hospital emergencies. This is caused by several complex factors that all relate to poor leadership and a collapsed healthcare system.
Instead of working to fix this. Our current management is still only focused on our upcoming transition to EHS Corporation on September 1st. When she is not busy feeding lies to CTV news, Anne MacDonald keeps saying "these are exciting times". Paramedics don't find anything about the current state of affairs exciting. Patients not getting the care that they need is becoming acceptable to our management. They would rather distract by talking about logos or having consultants like EY get involved in our day to day operations.
We are angry and every member of the public has the right to be angry about this. By refusing to fix the issues with our healthcare and EMS system, our government and EMS management are gambling with your health and the health of your family. We don't need a new organization and logo. We need proper investment and real leadership.
