In a statement, city spokesperson Allison Jones said Hamilton has seen 911 calls for help spike over 5 per cent, coupled with a more than 20 per cent drop off in hospital offload performance at emergency rooms around the city - and that was an area where Hamilton was already lagging behind the provincial standard. This has been getting worse and not better." The mayor says ambulance workers told him last night that a lack of long term care beds and legislation that dictates they have to bring patients to a hospital instead of places that might be more suiting like a walk in clinic are also contributing factors. The city says long hospital offload delays and increasing service demands are major contributors to the frequency of code zero alerts. "It was a stark reality for me to see it again, in real time." A perfect storm of problems We've known it's been a problem for quite some time. "It was eye opening in terms of the severity of it. "When you look at that, that's almost all the vehicles we had on that shift to be able to deal with any emergent care issues," he said. Joseph's Healthcare, and another four sitting at Juravinski. Mario Posteraro, Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 256 presidentĮight ambulances were sitting idle outside the emergency department door, with 16 paramedics standing the gateway to the hospital with patients, stuck there for hours at a time until there was room for the patients to be processed.Įisenberger says he made some calls, and found out there were also seven or eight ambulances tied up at St. We continue to play Russian roulette with the health and well being of our citizens. Instead of just sitting in the waiting room while his friend was being seen, Eisenberger decided to check in with some of the healthcare workers on shift at the time - and what he found floored him. Mayor Fred Eisenberger had what he called an "eye-opening" first-hand look at the stress on the system last night, when he drove a friend in the midst of a medical issue to the emergency department at Hamilton Health Sciences. Coroner's office now probing death of woman after paramedics couldn't reach her in time.The face of health-care cuts: Grandmother dies and no paramedics available to help.
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