Code red: As hospital admissions stall, ambulance gridlock rises
CBC
Longer offload times, shortages in staff and overwhelmed hospitals due to Omicron are all contributing factors to a spike in code red instances in the region — meaning there are no ambulances available to respond to emergency calls.
Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services Deputy Chief Robert Crossan said there were 11 code red instances in December, more than double the number recorded the previous month. Some may last a few minutes, others can delay an ambulance up to half an hour.
"To have six to seven crews at each hospital on offload at the same time is not unusual [now]. And that's two-thirds of our vehicles that are on the roads at that time," he said.
The ambulance crew doesn't leave until the hospital has assumed responsibility for the patient.
"The hospital system, when we run out of qualified staff to make sure that there's enough beds open and everything starts to back up in the emergency department, we're at the end of that," he explained.
A call would normally take ambulance crews approximately an hour when there are no offload delays, as they move through the process from initial dispatch to case clearance after delivering a patient. But Crossan said that is now taking several hours, noting two cases in early January when one took eight and another took 11.5 hours.
"When there is no place to put those patients, we're the ones standing in the hallway for four hours" he said.
Grand River Hospital put out a call for community support Thursday as hospitals face "an unprecedented level of pressure."
As of Thursday morning, the hospital's occupancy dashboard showed 11 patients were waiting on a stretcher in the emergency department to be admitted to an inpatient unit. Friday afternoon that had fallen slightly to nine people.
"Looking at the 660 beds across GRH's K-W and Freeport Campuses, there is only one available bed, which means there no place for these patients to go," a release from the hospital read.
Hospital president and CEO, Ron Gagnon said, "We are now at the point where we may need to start transferring patients out of our hospital for care, and it's a point we never wanted to reach."
"We also know that this is not an easy or ready fix, as many hospitals in the region and across the province are in the same situation."
Paramedic services are also dealing with a record call volumes, Crossan said.
Normally, about 900 to 1,000 calls come in per week, he said. Lately paramedics have been dealing with 1,100 to 1,200 calls. Crossan points to the Omicron variant for the influx in calls.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.