High patient volumes and staffing shortages within local hospital emergency rooms are impacting the ability of local paramedics in the Waterloo Region to respond to critical calls.
The preliminary Paramedic Services Annual Report was presented to the Community and Health Services Committee at Regional Council (item 8.2 on the regular agenda) this week reporting response statistics, off-load delay mitigation, and changes to the categorization of system alerts and patient acuity.
Although call volumes requesting paramedic help increased only by 1% in 2023, in 2022 call volumes increased by 11% over the previous year, and the paramedic service is still adjusting to these high call volumes.
While the local paramedic service exceeded all of their provincial and regional response time targets, the challenges posed by off-load delays, which happen when paramedics are held up in hospital emergency departments waiting for patients to be transferred to the care of a hospital, are a significant factor in response time.
