AHS - EMS Wait Times

[jwslam]

Just wanted to start a new thread rather than derail regarding these posts from the dog-attack thread.

Originally Posted by Boblobla

30 mins for EMS? Wow...

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

That's just as infuriating as the dog attack. I want to know why the hell it took so long? Is that standard now?
"no comment from AHS" Yeah #### that noise.

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

Huge labour shortage. An old friend was a Calgary paramedic, and left. He said they're over worked, with high instances of PTSD etc;

Originally Posted by btimbit

Yes, it is. AHS have been warning people about this for years, not their fault nobody listens

Originally Posted by Faust

EMS response times have been steadily deteriorating over the last few years and this has been in the news frequently over the last few weeks:
https://globalnews.ca/news/8820808/a...tial-collapse/
https://globalnews.ca/news/8828022/a...rvices-crisis/
https://globalnews.ca/news/8869029/a...ems-positions/


I have a family member that works as a paramedic here in Calgary. It’s a highly stressful and difficult job with high rates of PTSD and burnout. The UCP have been pushing for wages to either be rolled back or frozen for this profession, so we are educating these people only to see them turnover to other careers typically after only 5 to 8 years on average.

This is my personal experience, May 2022. Some info about why I had to make this trip here:
https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...37#post8280837

The approx timeline of what I had happen:

Saturday 16:00 - Called 911 dispatch
Saturday 16:30 - Called 911 again to follow up
Saturday 17:00 - They show up
Saturday 17:30 - Finished evaluation. Enroute to "least congested" hospital
Saturday 18:00 - Arrive at Foothills Medical Center. Put into the ER triage which is a hallway of anyone that arrives by ambulance. In this hallway, from what I overheard, there is one older lady that requires stitches near her eye from a fall, and two cases of OD (fentanyl) which require full time baby sitting and waiting for police to take over. The Paramedics from the ambulance are with us through the xray process, until the doctor has spoken to us, and we are admitted into an ER room. To my knowledge, the ambulance was also not reallocated to anyone else, not that I think there was anyone else to use it anyways... The other cases had all been dealt with and transferred, and we are the last ones in this hallway when we are leaving.
Saturday 21:30 - Admitted into an ER room. Paramedics and ambulance are now free to go. Based on their shift times, I'm not sure they went out to pick up another case or not.
Saturday 22:00 - Patient is tested for COVID. Tested positive so we are required to wait for a room in the isolation ward. I also overhear another nurse saying of the 32 rooms in this ER area, only one has tested COVID negative. Throughout the night, it was pretty much a game of "who can be the loudest to get the nurses' attention" by everyone around. I heard multiple monitoring alarms being ignored for 5-10minutes at a time. Any attention I kindly asked for took 15+ minutes to come back.
Sunday 09:30 - Transfer to isolation room.

I am thankful that our case was not an immediate emergency, and grateful that the staff still have the energy to put up with this broken system that is draining their souls.

I see how EMS response can be so slow if paramedics are tied up waiting with patients in ER... I'm not sure how this can be improved though if ambulances are to be called for emergencies since the patient is unable to make it to ER themselves.

[iggy_oi]

I suggest asking the health minister Jason Copping what he’s doing to fix the problem.

Calgary.varsity@assembly.ab.ca

If you want a quicker response it might be a good idea to cc the opposition health critic David Shepherd on your email.

Edmonton.CityCentre@assembly.ab.ca

[Northendzone]

to me this just all comes down to the fact that our public health system is currently not working very well.

and if one political party was to come up with fixes - the toerh parties will trot out the "they are trying to privatize medical care" cry to make folks afraid of any change.

I am not sure how you change the stress level of paramedics. They are often in the thick of accidents and have to deal with scenes that look like the start of saving private ryan. Would be hard to decompress if you had to deal with a couple of grisly accident scenes in one stretch of consecutive shifts

[btimbit]

Understaffed and underfunded for the last decade, throw in a pandemic and an opoid crisis, this is what happens.

AHS just doesn't have enough resources. EMS can't get there faster because they don't have enough units. rural towns are left without coverage because their trucks get pulled into the cities for hospital transfers or even for calls. Half their units are stuck waiting at the hospital with patients because the hospitals don't have the resources to admit patients in a timely manner. Government is content going "Hur durr it's because of centralized dispatch, and healthcare workers get paid too much!" then offer no actual solution

Retroactive wage cuts is a joke, it's a wonder we even have any paramedics still working at this point

This post from a CP paramedic was awesome and did a good job explaining some of the issues, but it's from an old RGMG thread that seems to be archived or deleted so it no longer exists

[photon]

Is this a problem common across Canada? Or is Alberta particularly bad?

As I get older I don't really like the idea of dying because there were no ambulances available.

[shermanator]

I don't know why any of this is a surprise to anyone. The paramedic union has been raising the alarm on this for a long time....

August 2021 - Calgary EMS had no ambulances available more than 3,500 times this past year https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...nton-1.6152107
October 2021 - Code Red: Alberta's paramedics union declares state of crisis due to staffing shortages https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/code-red-...ages-1.5640888
October 2021 - Alberta paramedic union raises red flag over ambulance red alerts https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...ovid-1.6227647
Dec 2021 - Alberta communities ran out of ambulances 31 times last weekend, union warns https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...tage-1.6281900
Jan 2022 - Head of Alberta paramedic union wants more done to protect staff https://globalnews.ca/news/8517615/a...staff-burnout/
May 2022 - ‘We’re on our knees’: Alberta EMS union says system on the verge of collapse https://globalnews.ca/news/8820808/a...tial-collapse/

[Yoho]

Can’t imagine how many AHS staff are off on short and long term sickness.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by btimbit

"Hur durr it's because of centralized dispatch"

I don't understand this at all... with all the tech nowadays, why is the first question when I called 911 "What region are you calling from?"

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by jwslam

I don't understand this at all... with all the tech nowadays, why is the first question when I called 911 "What region are you calling from?"

I'll let WhiteTiger answer the dispatch questions, for obvious reasons

[jwslam]

My biggest gripe is why we have a system that provides free healthcare to drug related incidents, especially repeat offenders.

But that's a different discussion.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by jwslam

I don't understand this at all... with all the tech nowadays, why is the first question when I called 911 "What region are you calling from?"

Because...'centralized dispatch'!

No, seriously.

Let's say that you are in Black Diamond, and call for an ambulance. You will speak first with the Calgary 911 PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point) that will ask you where you are calling from, 'cause the Calgary 911 PSAP answers 911 for a significant chunk of Alberta (not just Calgary).

So let's say you tell them "I need an ambulance in Black Diamond". You are then transferred to an AHS PSAP. There are three in Alberta (Calgary, Edmonton and Peace River) and you can get your call sent to any of the three depending on which has a free operator (The 911 PSAP has no control of which of the three AHS PSAP's your call is sent to). If all three are busy (which happens) then you wait until someone's free to talk to you. So despite your call starting in Calgary, you have a chance to be talking to someone in Calgary, Edmonton or Peace River...who will verify your location and send you the 'closest' ambulance.

But wait! You tell the AHS phone operator that you need an ambulance because a riot has broken out at Marv's since they are out of hamburger meat, so there is violence involved. The AHS person will stop the call and transfer you to the RCMP OCC (Operational Communications Center) of which there are two in Alberta, one in Edmonton and one in Red Deer. So now you are talking to the RCMP about this, and they are on the way...you will likely be transferred BACK to the AHS PSAP, which of course means you can get any one in any of the three cities again.

Time starts to really add up.

Then, on top of all of that...the AHS PSAP says that the Black Diamond ambulance is currently being held up in a Calgary hospital for a drop off, and the nearest one to Black Diamond is Jasper (I only wish I was joking...)

So yeah, dispatch is a clusterfata

[DoubleK]

Pretty sure one of the posters on CP works for AHS.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by photon

Is this a problem common across Canada? Or is Alberta particularly bad?

As I get older I don't really like the idea of dying because there were no ambulances available.

I don't know about all of Canada, but I seem to recall it's a major issue in some of the surrounding small towns.

To be more succinct, I don't necessarily think it's a good discussion to say all of health care at times. EMS staffing, resources and equipment age/availability specifically is in really bad shape.

Not commenting, but I honestly believe that the broad stroke slash on health spending by the government affected and hurt EMS programs more than the programs staffed by the average doctors and nurses.

Originally Posted by jwslam

My biggest gripe is why we have a system that provides free healthcare to drug related incidents, especially repeat offenders.

But that's a different discussion.

The irony is that this specific program actually helps to address the EMS issues.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Pretty sure one of the posters on CP works for AHS.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

There's a few, yeah

I asked the mods if that really good/big post on EMS is archived and can be retrieved, or if it's just deleted. I bookmarked it but it's a dead link now

[81MC]

Friends 1 year old had a seizure out of the blue while at a restaurant. Child went blue, parent thought kid was legit dead. Ambulance took 45 minutes. That’s a god dammed eternity.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Because...'centralized dispatch'!

No, seriously.

Let's say that you are in Black Diamond, and call for an ambulance. You will speak first with the Calgary 911 PSAP (Public Safety Answer Point) that will ask you where you are calling from, 'cause the Calgary 911 PSAP answers 911 for a significant chunk of Alberta (not just Calgary).

So let's say you tell them "I need an ambulance in Black Diamond". You are then transferred to an AHS PSAP. There are three in Alberta (Calgary, Edmonton and Peace River) and you can get your call sent to any of the three depending on which has a free operator (The 911 PSAP has no control of which of the three AHS PSAP's your call is sent to). If all three are busy (which happens) then you wait until someone's free to talk to you. So despite your call starting in Calgary, you have a chance to be talking to someone in Calgary, Edmonton or Peace River...who will verify your location and send you the 'closest' ambulance.

But wait! You tell the AHS phone operator that you need an ambulance because a riot has broken out at Marv's since they are out of hamburger meat, so there is violence involved. The AHS person will stop the call and transfer you to the RCMP OCC (Operational Communications Center) of which there are two in Alberta, one in Edmonton and one in Red Deer. So now you are talking to the RCMP about this, and they are on the way...you will likely be transferred BACK to the AHS PSAP, which of course means you can get any one in any of the three cities again.

Time starts to really add up.

Then, on top of all of that...the AHS PSAP says that the Black Diamond ambulance is currently being held up in a Calgary hospital for a drop off, and the nearest one to Black Diamond is Jasper (I only wish I was joking...)

So yeah, dispatch is a clusterfata

K fine but still... I specifically called from a landline so they have at least a general idea of where I am, but nope it seems they don't have that information at all, or nobody looks at it.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by jwslam

K fine but still... I specifically called from a landline so they have at least a general idea of where I am, but nope it seems they don't have that information at all, or nobody looks at it.

Or, for legal reasons, we're not allowed to assume you/the incident are where your phone tells us you are and have to have you tell us twice, anyhow.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by jwslam

K fine but still... I specifically called from a landline so they have at least a general idea of where I am, but nope it seems they don't have that information at all, or nobody looks at it.

How are they supposed to know? Or that you're even calling for an emergency at your location? There's a reason they make you repeat things, you'd be surprised how often I get sent to the wrong location based off the 911 call

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Or, for legal reasons, we're not allowed to assume you are where your phone tells us you are and have to have you tell us twice, anyhow.

They can't assume your location based on that information. A few years ago, some dispatch system (I don't think it was Alberta) had this and there was a huge fiasco because the phone number was actually VOIP/VPN or something. The registered address didn't match the call location and the dispatch was sent to the wrong location. The person died because EMS wasn't able to figure out where they were.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

A few years ago, some dispatch system (I don't think it was Alberta) had this and there was a huge fiasco because the phone number was actually VOIP/VPN or something. The registered address didn't match the call location and the dispatch was sent to the wrong location. The person died because EMS wasn't able to figure out where they were.

I happen to recall the Calgary version of this story:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...patch-1.694529