By Sidura Ludwig
Don’t be alarmed if you see an ambulance parked outside a Tim Hortons for 30 minutes.
Those paramedics aren’t on a coffee break. They’re waiting to save lives.
Strategically deployed ambulances across the city are all part of Ottawa’s newly amalgamated emergency medical services. The EMS has a goal: to decrease response times for life-threatening emergencies. In 2000, response times averaged 14 minutes for life-threatening emergencies.
“Our response times were unacceptable for the type of city Ottawa is,” says Anthony Di Monte, director of emergency medical services. The target over the next three years is to decrease that response time to 8:59.
“We protect citizens. People move to the downtown core and to the suburbs throughout the day. (Our ambulances) are continuously deployed by call volume,” Di Monte says.
Under the old system, emergency medical services were operated by six different service providers (the Ministry of Health and five private operators). But on Jan. 1, 2001, the province downloaded ambulance services to municipalities across Ontario.
Now, all of Ottawa’s ambulances are housed at a central station on Tremblay Road and deployed to satellite stations across the city as needed. Centretown has a satellite station on Gladstone Avenue.
The new system also sees 40 per cent more ambulances on the road and 38 per cent more paramedics.
“Before, we were six different entities,” says paramedic Paul Morneau. “We were never one big happy family. Now, it’s more a sense of working together because we’re all under one roof.”
The amalgamation also means more ambulances have advanced-care paramedics. Primary-care paramedics have two years of college training and can administer some drugs and medical aid. Advanced-care paramedics have three years of training and are qualified to provide more complex services.
Morneau says he hopes to see advanced-care paramedics on each ambulance, which means more training for primary-care paramedics.
More training, more ambulances, more staff and Ottawa’s new “big happy family” will cost a big, pretty penny. Di Monte estimates the total cost of the new system at $30 million. The city and province are expected to split the bill equally, but the governments are still negotiating.
“We firmly believe that this is money the province is expected to provide and we expect them to provide it,” says Elisabeth Arnold, city councillor for Somerset ward.
The province has agreed to pay half the approved costs, says Jeff Bell, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. However, the city and province as still determining which costs will be approved.
“The ministry will pay for what is necessary, but not for that which is deemed to be extra,” Bell says.
Unless the city gets contrary information on provincial funding, it will keep running ambulances as planned, Arnold says.
That plan includes turning Ottawa into a “heart-safe city.” The city already has plans to put more heart defibrillator machines at city sites such as pools and office buildings, Di Monte says. He plans to have volunteers trained to use the machines and says the machines can be operated by non-medical personnel with the proper training.
Defibrillators across the city and more people trained in CPR will help save more lives, Di Monte says.
“We’re now working as one team for one objective – patient survival,” Di Monte says.
Di Monte expects emergency medical services to reach its response-time goal by 2003. In the meantime, Centretown residents can already expect better ambulance services.
“Best-case scenario,” Arnold says, “would be that ambulance service response times will be slightly better in Centretown.”
“As of today, one should already be noticing a difference,” says Di Monte. “Last year, you would have called an ambulance and that would have been it. Now, they come quicker and better equipped.”