OTTAWA, ONTARIO, IS THE LATEST ENTRY to a long list of cities that is facing daily ambulance shortages because of hospitals’ inability to receive patients in a timely manner.

Firegeezer has been reporting periodically of the situation in many cities, not just in the U. S. and Canada, but in UK and Australia as well, where emergency ambulances are being held out of service because of delays at hospitals.

Ottawa operates a fleet of 40 ambulances, but this past Friday morning only one of them was available to answer a call anywhere in the capital city.  All the others were either already on a call or, in most cases, waiting at a hospital for a patient to be admitted.

The Ottawa Citizen reports:

A Citizen freedom of information request generated log information that shows between December and February, there were at least 42 instances when Ottawa’s paramedic service was at Level 0, which means there weren’t any ambulances available.

The chief of the city’s paramedic service says the problem of hospital waits has been steadily worsening. Now , it often ties up paramedics for as long as two hours, when it should just take 20 minutes. On average, about a third of the city’s paramedic crews are tied up at hospitals trying to off-load patients.

He notes that Ottawa is just one of many Canadian cities that are going through this alarming overflow of patients at hospitals. “It’s backing up on to the street. We have to find solutions.”

Read the full story HERE.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed