Despite high volumes of calls that are leaving paramedics overworked and dealing with unmanageable patient loads, city ambulances are actually getting to patients quicker than those in many other municipalities, according to figures from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.
This comes at a time when the service is asking the city for an extra $1.2 million to hire 30 new paramedics, one new supervisor, and five more ambulances in an already contentious budget year.
For the first time, the province has published statistics that show how long it takes for ambulance crews in different cities to respond to different types of calls.
In the case of a sudden cardiac arrest patient – which is classified as the most serious kind of call – local paramedics are trying to meet a benchmark of arriving at the scene within six minutes (with about two extra minutes factored into each call for time on the phone with an operator before the ambulance is sent out).
According to the province, Hamilton's crews hit that benchmark 77 per cent of the time in 2013. Their performance improves as the urgency of calls dips – and the service is beating its 75 per cent planned percentage in every category.
'If ambulances continue to take 20 minutes for life threatening conditions, people are going to die because of it.'- Christine Hughes, ambulance patient
That's better than many other cities. Ottawa is meeting the six-minute benchmark for the most serious types of calls 73.5 per cent of the time, while Toronto is meeting it 75.6 per cent of the time.
Other municipalities are nowhere near that number – Waterloo is hitting the benchmark 40 per cent of the time, while Prince Edward County had the worst numbers in the province and never hit its six-minute benchmark.
Middlesex County had the best numbers, just edging out Hamilton at 77.1 per cent on the most serious calls, and surpassing the city more handily in other categories.
'My airway was starting to close'
But just because Hamilton's paramedics are performing well compared to the rest of the province doesn't mean everything is rosy. The number of "code zero" incidents when there is one or fewer ambulances available to help on emergency calls has jumped significantly in recent years.
On average, Hamilton paramedics have a code zero every day and a half, according to Michael Sanderson, chief of Hamilton EMS who made the pitch to council for the extra staff earlier this month. He called his crews the busiest in the province.
Christine Hughes knows how terrifying it can be when the system fails. She is extremely allergic to nuts and legumes, and at a Christmas party last year, started going into anaphylactic shock.
"My nose started to close up and my throat started to close up and it became hard to breathe," she said. "My airway was starting to close."
She used her Epipen, and her partner called an ambulance at 6:53 p.m. That ambulance didn't show up until 20 minutes later, after repeated calls were made. Luckily she had a second Epipen, which she used after the first dose's effects started wearing off.
"If I didn't have that second Epipen, I'm really scared about what could've happened. Without it, my airway would've continued to close," she said. "I was terrified. It was very scary to know I couldn't rely on the medical system to be there when I needed it."
"If ambulances continue to take 20 minutes for life threatening conditions, people are going to die because of it."
Current workload not sustainable, union head says
Mario Posteraro – who is president of OPSEU local 356 that represents Hamilton's roughly 320 front line paramedics – says that the city is known as a high-stress place to work because it doesn't have enough paramedics to meet demand.
The current workload is "not sustainable," he told CBC Hamilton after the budget submission.
"Unless there's some level of reprieve in the course of a shift, when you're pummelled and the pace is blistering, it has an effect on paramedics," he said.
"We have a fairly high incidence of injuries and illnesses. Meal breaks are missed, and even when we do have them, they're interrupted."
Things are even worse in outlying areas. It takes nearly twice the amount of time to get an ambulance in Flamborough as it does in the lower city. New figures in this year's budget show it takes over 18 minutes, on average, to get an ambulance in Flamborough. Meanwhile, it takes about 11 minutes to get one in the old city of Hamilton.
The $1.2 million from local taxpayers would cover roughly half the cost of the service expansion with the province picking up the rest. At council's request, Hamilton EMS will bring back options to phase in increases over two and three years during Tuesday's budget deliberations at city hall.
adam.carter@cbc.ca | AdamCarterCBC
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