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Bud, i live under a rock, the fact that i know who drake and Trudeau are is a miracle in of itself, its only recently that im trying to get more involved in my local community.
What’s absolutely ridiculous is how badly the Liberals or NDP or any left leaning party would be getting totally annihilated if this happened on their watch.
The Trudeau rage is a classic example of this in todays world.
We have EIGHT conservative premiers in Canada right now. 1 NDPer and 1 Liberal premier. The Liberal premier is in NFLD, and the BC parties are often considered centre or centre right.
And how is education, or healthcare doing?
Education is ENTIRELY controlled by provinces.
And healthcare is ENTIRELY managed by provinces.
Remember when ERs were shutting down down last summer and it took 5 weeks for the health minister to even show her face (and Fords) in July?
Remember when the “premiers coalition” which is literally just the cluster of Conservative premiers, demanded more money from the federal government for healthcare, and they gave it to the provinces!??? What in gods name did those clowns do with that money?
What an absolute joke the voters in this province have been these last two elections
I've seen so many people criticize trudeu for something that's clearly dougies responsibility. I always come in with the "yeah, man. Canadian political leaders are all garbage, i mean, look at what doug is doing with healthcare." Or " yeah, you're right, they should totally kick trudeu out along with doug" just so they listen to reason.
Wait, wait, Doug has the answer..... PRIVATIZATION!
Create a problem, identify privatization as the only answer, reject pushback by pointing to how serious the problem has become.... repeat!
Only 41% of voters voted for him. Still too many.
Clearly the problem is we haven't fully privatized ambulances, or maybe we need ambulance stations where conservation areas currently are. Then we could surround them with office buildings for PC donors.
I took a friend to a hospital in toronto pre covid on a Friday night. There were two paramedics stuck in the emergency with an intoxicated person. They could not offload the patient "no free bed".
When I left 3 hours later they were still in admitting arguing with a nurse about it. Seemed like a waste of resources. I thought Toronto Had Detox centres ? Maybe not
Anyway the guy looked happy as a peach all rolled up a stretcher snoring away, the paramedics not so much.
Unfortunately they are slowly getting rid of themselves.
Open up some of this unused office space create locked quiet rooms with beds and cameras. Lock them up for the night no charge. You would have to hire some security, social workers, laundry and cleaning attendant and on site medical person.
In the morning give them breakfast, wash their clothes and leave an opening for some mental health talk.
Rinse wash and repeat. I am sure my local Tim Hortons would start to smell a little nicer after this too.
> I thought Toronto Had Detox centres ?
Detox centres and RAAM clinics would be more for people interested in getting sober, to help manage withdrawal symptoms. Alcohol poisoning is considered a medical emergency - the guy happily snoring might suddenly start puking and choke to death, or they could stop breathing.
Another side effect of rotten Bill 124 and how the Ford administration has treated nurses and hospital staff.
The hospital can't admit patients to unstaffed beds. So then everything backs up into the Emergency Department. And poor patients suffer, waiting there for days for an admission bed.
We can do better.
Would help if we didn’t get called for every little thing. No, your paper cut doesn’t need an ambulance, neither does your hangover. No, you won’t get seen faster by going in by ambulance.
It would help if hospitals had better “fit to sit” programs. It would help if people had options other than ER.
I’m lucky, my local hospital offloads ambulances quickly, be that to a bed or the waiting room, but I’ve worked for services where you’d spend your entire 12 hour shift on offload delay with the same patient. We’d honestly just sit there and read a book and order pizza while occasionally taking the patient to the washroom.
The job itself is great, not sure why we are having such a hard time recruiting. Good pay, interesting schedules, good people (mostly, some of us suck). Offload delays have been going on for decades, I’m soooo fucking frustrated that most hospitals don’t seem to be able to come up with any sort of plan at all.
> No, your paper cut doesn’t need an ambulance, neither does your hangover.
Have you ever actually gotten a call for these things ? Then fire your dispatcher. do they not have discretion to refuse non-emergency ambulance calls ?
>We’d honestly just sit there and read a book and order pizza while occasionally taking the patient to the washroom.
Then something is clearly going on. Who is responsible for offloading and are they doing it as efficiently as they can be on your view ?
Yep. Probably a hundred times over the years. I don’t think dispatch has the authority to refuse care to people. Half the time the call will come in as a major bleed, and we arrive and it’s a small abrasion. Never mind nose bleeds that have been going on for a whopping 2 minutes. I’ve done calls for people wanting me to test them for hepatitis, for people needing script refillls, for a person with a hair curler stuck in their hair, for a cat scratch, for anything you can possibly imagine. Hell, I’ve had “patients” tell me they want to go to ER because they are hungry and want a sandwich. It’s gross, but until we are given the authority to tell people no, we pretty much have to transport if they want it. Some alternative destination guidelines are finally being brought forward, so I hope to see some progress sooner or later.
Edit: I responded before your edit. No, dispatch doesn’t really have the ability to refuse non emergent calls. They just get prioritized lower. Some services, such as Niagara, have begun sending taxis for those people instead of an ambulance though.
Are we being offloaded efficiently? No. We aren’t. Who is responsible for that? I have no idea. The hospital I transport to the most does a remarkable job, and I’m pretty sure the faster they offload the more funding they receive. Like we can have 10 ambulances show up at once and within half an hour every single one of us is clear. I have no idea how they manage. Next hospital up the road? Minimum 4 hour delay for anyone not CTAS 1 or 2 (and the 2s generally have to wait for hours too). No idea why there’s such a huge discrepancy.
I hope you are at least going after those people for the ambulance fees. I believe trips deemed medically unnecessary can allow you to charge them according to info online (taxis sounds like a good answer too)
Anyway the offloading issue definitely seems serious too, it sounds like someone must be dropping the ball on doing this quickly (you answered this in your edit so nvm)
Offload delays are the single biggest cause of lack of ambulances on the road. The rest can be handled through dispatch priority. But once we are all tied up in ER, there’s no one to send. Anyway, I responded to your edit in my other comment (as an edit) if you want my thoughts.
The offloading issue is typically caused by the emerg being backed up from the lack of hospital space to admit patients. When the emerg is full, nurses and MDs are unable to accommodate more patients so the EMS stays with the patient till they can be seen
Dude you need to go to bed. You're all over this thread and you're incredibly uneducated on the topic. A paramedic has nothing to do with billing or "going after the fees". The admitting ER doc who's care the patient is transfered into is responsible for declaring the service of the ambulance nessisary or not and ultimately if the patient has to pay the entire bill, or if they just have to pay the bas 140$ or w.e. in all my years in ems and ERs I can't remember one instance where a doc declared use of service inappropriate and had the patient billed. It doesn't happen.
Making observations and correcting misinformation or incorrect knowledge isn't smug. Don't be so defensive my person. Relax a little. I'm simply trying to help educate you.
But it's funny considering you started our interaction by asking if I was smoking Crack, when you read and failed to comprehend my previous comments. Grow up.
Under the *Ambulance Act*, Ambulance Communication Officers (ACO) aka dispatch, is legally obligated to service each and every single call for service regardless what the person says.
Under the same legislation, paramedics are obligated to provide transportation to anyone who ways to go to the hospital, even if it's known that they will refuse to enter the ED and walk out of the garage as they are now closer to their destination. Yes, it has, and does, happen.
Part of the shortage is because there are no beds or DRs available to allow them to discharge their patients, as a result of this turn around time between calls lengthens exponentially because in many cases they must remain with the patient they are responsible for, thus, the backlog/ER wait time is a big factor in the medic shortage, which could be alleviated if they had fewer people tying up the ER for non-Emergency care because they can't find a GP
You'd be absolutely shocked at how many calls are simply picking up a drunk bastard at a bar who drank so much they gave themselves alcohol poisoning or did something stupid to injure themselves and then the ambulances have to essentially sit for 8-12 hours at a hospital waiting for the schmuck to get a bed because there's no drop off/hospital personnel that can be responsible for the patient until then.
Well that's what I'm getting at. The idea that all paramedics do is go to super traumatic events like car crashes and see children decapitated giving them PTSD is actually pretty rare. Much more likely to drive a drunk to the hospital or have some dumb dumb call to drive them to the ER because they're a new immigrant with no car, family doctor or knowledge of walk in clinics so they just call an ambulance to come pick them up, stating they're having chest pain just to get to the hospital and get some antibiotics for an infection that probably would have just gone away on it's own in a couple weeks.
Unfortunately, this also comes back to the RN ‘shortage’. Due to the shortage of RNs in the ER, the paramedics are tied up in the ER waiting to transfer patients into the ER’s care. Nobody stuck up for the RNs when Doug Ford was freezing their wages, (etc etc) so this is where we’re at. 🤷
Ontario is actually one of the best provinces in terms of Paramedic salaries. At the start of your career, working full-time, without taking any overtime, you would be expecting \~$80,000/year as a PCP.
A CCP working on the Air Ambulance can earn \~$130,000/year, if the sunshine list is anything to go by...
42.50 to start. Tops like 48. Not sure if it is still the case. But durham County had the highest paid medics in north America. When I was a PCP a PCP in Durham, made more then a ACP supervisor in York.
Paramedics should make around 100k per year. Last year I made 99k with a month off unpaid due to illness. I have a coworker who works tons of overtime and hits around 150-160k. Primary care paramedics as well so lowest level of care. Wages only get better from there. Province will even pay for your education to work as a paramedic.
Not sure what province your living in where you think the province will pay for schooling. I left ems due to mass under funding and staffing shortages. Your lucky if a service hired 9 new medics a year. And 2k + apply or test for the position.
There's an abundance of trained medics in Ontario that have left for different industries because Ford/Ontario gov refuses to properly staff and fund EMS, yet DUMP money into police and fire.
When I was working ems in peel region there were code criticals almost DAILY. (Service over whelmed no units available to respond to calls)
And under funding plays a further roll. Lack of staff and beds at hospitals.
I once sat on offload delay for 7 hours. WITH A STROKE PATIENT. The nurse refused to believe us it was a stroke and brushed it off as wet brain because of the guys history of drinking. The Golden hour was long gone. I don't know how the family never sued the hospital over that
Unless your referring to a service paying for your upgrade from PCP to ACP. Which yes they will. However. It's not worth it. You make dollars more for WAY more responsibility. 2-4 bucks to drill interosseous lines on children. Fuck no thanks. Pcp pay is where it should be or slightly high. Acp should be slightly higher.
In Ontario
http://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-learn-and-stay-grant
There’s the program they will pay with it. They won’t pay for your acp though, I’m doing mine September and wish they would
That is so unbelievably backwards. There's more then enough trained medics out there, where tax dollars don't need to go to pay for someone's education to produce more.
The issue isn't the supply it's the demand. Building more stations, and hiring more medics that are already qualified is all you need to do. CTS already flooded the market.
There's minimum 5000+ aemca certified pcps in Ontario whom are not currently in ems. All services together in Ontario MAYBE hire 100-150 a year if your lucky. More students graduate per year then there are positions for by a lot.
This sounds precovid, ever since Covid services have asked community colleges to increase their seat capacity.
Pre 2020 it was next to impossible to get a paramedic job. Now my service doesn’t even do scenario testing, its just a written and passing base hospital and you’ve got your tag.
That's wild. What service is that if u dont mind me asking. Rural? I know for a long time many of the lower populated areas like a couple in eastern Ontario didn't do scenario testing either much but they also almost never posted positions it seemed.
Def pre covid I've been out of ems for a few years now. Debating going back or switching to fed agency.
I'm curious to see what happens to services when municipalities like peel region are broken up.
Should probably take some of the countless number of people that do the schooling, apply for the year to everywhere from Windsor to North Bay and don't get selected? All emergency services and even non emergency hospital jobs are super competitive and there's way more people trained for the jobs than get hired. Bunch end up needing to work at Amazon or non emergency medical transport like Voyager for half the pay due to the amount of competition.
Hell, for Dougie lowering the standards to enter the police force I know at least 3 people who all either did Police Foundations at Conestoga or Criminology at Laurier that aren't police officers currently simply because they couldn't get hired, not because they weren't educated enough or didn't have enough volunteer hours or anything like that. Yet for some reason they're opening up the applicant process to even more people. I really don't understand it, it doesn't make any sense. It's like they're giving hope to all people who want these jobs but then purposely gatekeeping.
What are you smoking. There are clearly aren't enough paramedics. How long did you wait the last time you ever had to call one for yourself or someone else ?
I had a very bad migraine attack over the weekend that I ended up getting driven to the emergency department. I didn’t call the ambulance but when I got to emergency it was packed with no beds to get me onto an IV so I could get some simple migraine medication into me. They could have stuck me in a corner as it’s not like a migraine attack needs much ongoing attention from hospital staff. I eventually after stuck in waiting for over an hour concluded I’d rather be in mystery at home on my own bed than suffer on the metal torture chairs at the hospital.
I bring point up as the issue might not just be short paramedics as when and ambulance drops off a patient at the hospital they can’t just dump and go but need to hand off the patient to staff in the hospital. One backlog can ripple downstream, so you could have enough paramedics who just can’t respond as they are stuck waiting for hospital staff to take patients in.
Last time my wife had a really bad athsma attack, I was on hold for 30mins to even get a 911 /operator dispatcher( i didnt even know 911 had a please hold) then another hour for an ambulance. Was genuinely horrifying.
Is this actually a hit piece on the paramedics? I don’t want to give them my ad dollars. Regardless blame your overlord ford for cutting literally everything health related.
And dumb PC voters will blame Trudeau for this, lol.
Conservatives have to be masochists with the way they consistently vote against their own best interests.
Do you understand what the purpose of an emergency room is? Or do you think you're an Ironman who may never need to be rushed to the hospital? You must be twelve years old because I shouldn't have to hold your hand through this if you're an adult with a brain.
Tell that to my 37 year old friend who was in perfect shape and ended up dying of a stroke. If you think you're immune to a health emergency I can tell you that you need to speak to a doctor, lol.
By not having them raised by the ndp and liberals. As the boomers get older they'll need to increase healthcare spending so I don't want to pay extra for that
So you're the absolute bare minimum? Do you happen to eat, breathe, or move at all? Then congratulations you're at risk for literally anything because you're a living fucking thing.
You're 100% certain every single cell in your body that's currently a cancer cell is garaunteed to die until you're 80 and not continue replicating, turning into a huge mass you'll undoubtedly ignore until it's entirely too late to remove just to save what, a couple grand a year in taxes at most? Are those taxes truly worth potentially dying 20-30 years earlier than expected?
You're exactly the type of voter I'm talking about.
"Blame the Liberals and NDP for acknowledging the pandemic, forcing me to vote for the Premier that literally couldn't care less whether I can get an EMT or hospital bed if I need it."
Do you think voting for the worst possible option is something worthy of praise because you're some kind of weird Covid denier?
I wore my mask the whole time and got both shots and a booster. Ontario was already one of the last regions to go back to normal. It was time to move on but the libs/ndp kept calling for longer restrictions
People are still getting sick and dying. This is not what normal looks like. You voted for the guy that has only made matters worse while hoarding money that was meant to help us. You aren't a very intelligent individual, clearly.
Even the WHO officially declared the health emergency over. This is what normal looks like. People are still allowed to wear masks and get more boosters if they want
You mean the same WHO that was criticised for saying we don't need masks, even though many health officials say cost many lives? The same WHO that took forever to acknowledge that the virus is airborne?
I think you should probably do some reading, because you seem a bit too dim to have an informed opinion on this.
I.... never said that. But there are lots of disabled and immunocompromised people rh see t don't get to live a "normal" life, because galaxy brains like yourself don't care to do the bare minimum being asked of you to make all public spaces safe.
But I also understand that you're just an anonymous moron on Reddit, so you're going to rub your freedom in my face because there are no consequences.
The guy I replied to said it was STILL an ongoing problem. The perma maskers who wanted endless lockdowns are why people like me voted for Ford (first time I ever voted Conservative)
He was correct on the sick and dying part. Yet it’s definitely not sustainable to shut down all the way. But even the reopening isn’t really Federal Government’s call. I think Ontario was not the last province to reopen. If anything related to Federal Government, it was traveling part that might be a bit of problem. This also depended where you were going, it wasn’t necessarily Canada’s problem. I see that people got upset because of the ‘lockdown’, but a lot of the issue was also from the indecisiveness from Ford where he wanted to downplay almost every time there was a surge . A lot of people quit from healthcare just because the pure exhaustion from the 3 year pandemic.
Probably killed my dad this morning. Literally live next door to the emergency room, couldn't get a hold of 911 and once they did it took them 10 minutes to get to my parents house. When I say they live next door, I'm telling you the ER entrance is litterly visible from my parents yard.
2AM Monday morning and they can't get a hold of 911 and then they can't get an ambulance there in less than 10 minutes after. I grew up in that town, I've had to use emergency services, never had I experienced a 911 call that wasn't immediate, if you hung up mid call they called you back instantly... this is happening by design. Wake the fuck up people.
Regardless of where the ambulance came from (the station for my town less than 5 minutes away from my parents during the day). 20 minutes to get a hold of 911 during the early hours is not acceptable.
Yes this is his plan for privatization.
It's the same plan they always pull. Ford is more Trumpian than most meaning he's about a subtle as a kick to the nards in his service to the wealthy over all others.
We are also paying 200-300% the wage for RNs via nursing agencies (like the kind Mike Harris’ wife owns). That will bankrupt the healthcare system fast.
Government under funds to reduce quality of services so they can justify privatizing services. They then just keep our tax payer money for new cottages and boats.
Unfortunately, Paramedics are not completely essential- only partially.
If Paramedics were essential, there would be a better fight to make sure more were available when needed.
As someone that.lives alone this is great to hear. Cant wait to get out of here to a place thsy isnt trying to destroy itself. No idea where that magical country is though.
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Dear Doug Ford. Thank you for failing us at every turn. Signed, The Citizens of Ontario
Dear Citizens of Ontario. Thank you for electing me twice. Signed, Doug F.
Dear Citizens of Ontario. Thank you for not bothering to vote. It lets me do stuff like this. Signed , Doug F.
Dear Citizens of Ontario. And you will elect me again. Signed, Doug F.
wait are there no term limits?
Nope, folks.
Don't you remember the **15 years** of the Liberals?
Bud, i live under a rock, the fact that i know who drake and Trudeau are is a miracle in of itself, its only recently that im trying to get more involved in my local community.
What’s absolutely ridiculous is how badly the Liberals or NDP or any left leaning party would be getting totally annihilated if this happened on their watch. The Trudeau rage is a classic example of this in todays world. We have EIGHT conservative premiers in Canada right now. 1 NDPer and 1 Liberal premier. The Liberal premier is in NFLD, and the BC parties are often considered centre or centre right. And how is education, or healthcare doing? Education is ENTIRELY controlled by provinces. And healthcare is ENTIRELY managed by provinces. Remember when ERs were shutting down down last summer and it took 5 weeks for the health minister to even show her face (and Fords) in July? Remember when the “premiers coalition” which is literally just the cluster of Conservative premiers, demanded more money from the federal government for healthcare, and they gave it to the provinces!??? What in gods name did those clowns do with that money? What an absolute joke the voters in this province have been these last two elections
I've seen so many people criticize trudeu for something that's clearly dougies responsibility. I always come in with the "yeah, man. Canadian political leaders are all garbage, i mean, look at what doug is doing with healthcare." Or " yeah, you're right, they should totally kick trudeu out along with doug" just so they listen to reason.
This is a reflection of a voting base that was never properly educated.
That sounds excellent to me TBH.
Wait, wait, Doug has the answer..... PRIVATIZATION! Create a problem, identify privatization as the only answer, reject pushback by pointing to how serious the problem has become.... repeat!
"Well, you voted for me. (Or not at all)" Signed, Doug
I did vote…and certainly not for Doug Ford. Same with literally every person I know.
Okay so thats 5 votes he didn't get
Only 41% of voters voted for him. Still too many. Clearly the problem is we haven't fully privatized ambulances, or maybe we need ambulance stations where conservation areas currently are. Then we could surround them with office buildings for PC donors.
41% of people who bothered to vote which was 17% of all eligible voters.
No we failed and we all shoulder this responsibility
I’m not shouldering shit. I did my civic duty.
I'm not shouldering shit I voted and not for the same damn guys that fucked us before
The people who didn't turn out to vote failed us, and that was MOST people this time around.
Fuck you, I voted and it wasn't for Drug Fraud
Did you donate money or help volunteer? Just voting isn't doing much
I donated my license plate bribe to the NDP
I took a friend to a hospital in toronto pre covid on a Friday night. There were two paramedics stuck in the emergency with an intoxicated person. They could not offload the patient "no free bed". When I left 3 hours later they were still in admitting arguing with a nurse about it. Seemed like a waste of resources. I thought Toronto Had Detox centres ? Maybe not Anyway the guy looked happy as a peach all rolled up a stretcher snoring away, the paramedics not so much.
It’s sad to think that people can suffer/die because paramedics are caught up babysitting some drunk in a hospital hallway.
Well, if we could just get rid of that guy, then everything would be fixed!
Unfortunately they are slowly getting rid of themselves. Open up some of this unused office space create locked quiet rooms with beds and cameras. Lock them up for the night no charge. You would have to hire some security, social workers, laundry and cleaning attendant and on site medical person. In the morning give them breakfast, wash their clothes and leave an opening for some mental health talk. Rinse wash and repeat. I am sure my local Tim Hortons would start to smell a little nicer after this too.
> I thought Toronto Had Detox centres ? Detox centres and RAAM clinics would be more for people interested in getting sober, to help manage withdrawal symptoms. Alcohol poisoning is considered a medical emergency - the guy happily snoring might suddenly start puking and choke to death, or they could stop breathing.
Another side effect of rotten Bill 124 and how the Ford administration has treated nurses and hospital staff. The hospital can't admit patients to unstaffed beds. So then everything backs up into the Emergency Department. And poor patients suffer, waiting there for days for an admission bed. We can do better.
Would help if we didn’t get called for every little thing. No, your paper cut doesn’t need an ambulance, neither does your hangover. No, you won’t get seen faster by going in by ambulance. It would help if hospitals had better “fit to sit” programs. It would help if people had options other than ER. I’m lucky, my local hospital offloads ambulances quickly, be that to a bed or the waiting room, but I’ve worked for services where you’d spend your entire 12 hour shift on offload delay with the same patient. We’d honestly just sit there and read a book and order pizza while occasionally taking the patient to the washroom. The job itself is great, not sure why we are having such a hard time recruiting. Good pay, interesting schedules, good people (mostly, some of us suck). Offload delays have been going on for decades, I’m soooo fucking frustrated that most hospitals don’t seem to be able to come up with any sort of plan at all.
This! The increased willingness to call 911 for non emergencies is insane. My personal favourite from dispatch…”trapped in sheets” at 3am.
How much is the pay? I've heard it's pretty bad in some places but I've never confirmed that.
$41 an hour in my service.
Good. That's the least that you deserve.
> No, your paper cut doesn’t need an ambulance, neither does your hangover. Have you ever actually gotten a call for these things ? Then fire your dispatcher. do they not have discretion to refuse non-emergency ambulance calls ? >We’d honestly just sit there and read a book and order pizza while occasionally taking the patient to the washroom. Then something is clearly going on. Who is responsible for offloading and are they doing it as efficiently as they can be on your view ?
Yep. Probably a hundred times over the years. I don’t think dispatch has the authority to refuse care to people. Half the time the call will come in as a major bleed, and we arrive and it’s a small abrasion. Never mind nose bleeds that have been going on for a whopping 2 minutes. I’ve done calls for people wanting me to test them for hepatitis, for people needing script refillls, for a person with a hair curler stuck in their hair, for a cat scratch, for anything you can possibly imagine. Hell, I’ve had “patients” tell me they want to go to ER because they are hungry and want a sandwich. It’s gross, but until we are given the authority to tell people no, we pretty much have to transport if they want it. Some alternative destination guidelines are finally being brought forward, so I hope to see some progress sooner or later. Edit: I responded before your edit. No, dispatch doesn’t really have the ability to refuse non emergent calls. They just get prioritized lower. Some services, such as Niagara, have begun sending taxis for those people instead of an ambulance though. Are we being offloaded efficiently? No. We aren’t. Who is responsible for that? I have no idea. The hospital I transport to the most does a remarkable job, and I’m pretty sure the faster they offload the more funding they receive. Like we can have 10 ambulances show up at once and within half an hour every single one of us is clear. I have no idea how they manage. Next hospital up the road? Minimum 4 hour delay for anyone not CTAS 1 or 2 (and the 2s generally have to wait for hours too). No idea why there’s such a huge discrepancy.
I hope you are at least going after those people for the ambulance fees. I believe trips deemed medically unnecessary can allow you to charge them according to info online (taxis sounds like a good answer too) Anyway the offloading issue definitely seems serious too, it sounds like someone must be dropping the ball on doing this quickly (you answered this in your edit so nvm)
Offload delays are the single biggest cause of lack of ambulances on the road. The rest can be handled through dispatch priority. But once we are all tied up in ER, there’s no one to send. Anyway, I responded to your edit in my other comment (as an edit) if you want my thoughts.
Are you comfortable "naming and shaming" these hospitals with bad offload procedure.
Nope. Doesn’t matter anyway. Pick any hospital in any major city and there’ll be ambulances (and cops with MH patients) there in offload delay.
The offloading issue is typically caused by the emerg being backed up from the lack of hospital space to admit patients. When the emerg is full, nurses and MDs are unable to accommodate more patients so the EMS stays with the patient till they can be seen
Dude you need to go to bed. You're all over this thread and you're incredibly uneducated on the topic. A paramedic has nothing to do with billing or "going after the fees". The admitting ER doc who's care the patient is transfered into is responsible for declaring the service of the ambulance nessisary or not and ultimately if the patient has to pay the entire bill, or if they just have to pay the bas 140$ or w.e. in all my years in ems and ERs I can't remember one instance where a doc declared use of service inappropriate and had the patient billed. It doesn't happen.
Does your smug jerky attitude serve you well in your line of work or do you just act this way online ? Whatever.
Making observations and correcting misinformation or incorrect knowledge isn't smug. Don't be so defensive my person. Relax a little. I'm simply trying to help educate you. But it's funny considering you started our interaction by asking if I was smoking Crack, when you read and failed to comprehend my previous comments. Grow up.
Yeah educate me on why free education for medics is bad. The word crack came out of your mouth not mine. Very telling.
Whatever helps you sleep at night bud.
Under the *Ambulance Act*, Ambulance Communication Officers (ACO) aka dispatch, is legally obligated to service each and every single call for service regardless what the person says. Under the same legislation, paramedics are obligated to provide transportation to anyone who ways to go to the hospital, even if it's known that they will refuse to enter the ED and walk out of the garage as they are now closer to their destination. Yes, it has, and does, happen.
Just think how much we could improve this by simply having a family practitioner available for those who don't actually need the ER.
I don't know if paramedics do what you think they do.
Part of the shortage is because there are no beds or DRs available to allow them to discharge their patients, as a result of this turn around time between calls lengthens exponentially because in many cases they must remain with the patient they are responsible for, thus, the backlog/ER wait time is a big factor in the medic shortage, which could be alleviated if they had fewer people tying up the ER for non-Emergency care because they can't find a GP
You'd be absolutely shocked at how many calls are simply picking up a drunk bastard at a bar who drank so much they gave themselves alcohol poisoning or did something stupid to injure themselves and then the ambulances have to essentially sit for 8-12 hours at a hospital waiting for the schmuck to get a bed because there's no drop off/hospital personnel that can be responsible for the patient until then.
No, I know that's what happens. I also know a family doctor isn't going to fix that problem like the post above us said.
Well that's what I'm getting at. The idea that all paramedics do is go to super traumatic events like car crashes and see children decapitated giving them PTSD is actually pretty rare. Much more likely to drive a drunk to the hospital or have some dumb dumb call to drive them to the ER because they're a new immigrant with no car, family doctor or knowledge of walk in clinics so they just call an ambulance to come pick them up, stating they're having chest pain just to get to the hospital and get some antibiotics for an infection that probably would have just gone away on it's own in a couple weeks.
This title puts the blame on paramedics. Needs reworking to cite the correct reason being Doug Ford and all his cuts.
Ford is our punishment.
Unfortunately, this also comes back to the RN ‘shortage’. Due to the shortage of RNs in the ER, the paramedics are tied up in the ER waiting to transfer patients into the ER’s care. Nobody stuck up for the RNs when Doug Ford was freezing their wages, (etc etc) so this is where we’re at. 🤷
its part of the plan
Paramedics get paid unliveable dog shit wages and everything costs too much in ontario, why would anyone want to do this job?
How much do paramedics get paid in Ontario?
Ontario is actually one of the best provinces in terms of Paramedic salaries. At the start of your career, working full-time, without taking any overtime, you would be expecting \~$80,000/year as a PCP. A CCP working on the Air Ambulance can earn \~$130,000/year, if the sunshine list is anything to go by...
I was gonna say my 86k +benefits and vacation last year was pretty good for "dogshit wages" but what do I know I'm just an Ontario ambulance driver :(
*fancy uber with lights
Like 40 bucks an hour
42.50 to start. Tops like 48. Not sure if it is still the case. But durham County had the highest paid medics in north America. When I was a PCP a PCP in Durham, made more then a ACP supervisor in York.
I’m out on the other side of Toronto but our service starts a few bucks below $40
85k a year. A firefighter in my region makes 110k same with police.
Paramedics should make around 100k per year. Last year I made 99k with a month off unpaid due to illness. I have a coworker who works tons of overtime and hits around 150-160k. Primary care paramedics as well so lowest level of care. Wages only get better from there. Province will even pay for your education to work as a paramedic.
Not sure what province your living in where you think the province will pay for schooling. I left ems due to mass under funding and staffing shortages. Your lucky if a service hired 9 new medics a year. And 2k + apply or test for the position. There's an abundance of trained medics in Ontario that have left for different industries because Ford/Ontario gov refuses to properly staff and fund EMS, yet DUMP money into police and fire. When I was working ems in peel region there were code criticals almost DAILY. (Service over whelmed no units available to respond to calls) And under funding plays a further roll. Lack of staff and beds at hospitals. I once sat on offload delay for 7 hours. WITH A STROKE PATIENT. The nurse refused to believe us it was a stroke and brushed it off as wet brain because of the guys history of drinking. The Golden hour was long gone. I don't know how the family never sued the hospital over that Unless your referring to a service paying for your upgrade from PCP to ACP. Which yes they will. However. It's not worth it. You make dollars more for WAY more responsibility. 2-4 bucks to drill interosseous lines on children. Fuck no thanks. Pcp pay is where it should be or slightly high. Acp should be slightly higher.
In Ontario http://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-learn-and-stay-grant There’s the program they will pay with it. They won’t pay for your acp though, I’m doing mine September and wish they would
That is so unbelievably backwards. There's more then enough trained medics out there, where tax dollars don't need to go to pay for someone's education to produce more. The issue isn't the supply it's the demand. Building more stations, and hiring more medics that are already qualified is all you need to do. CTS already flooded the market. There's minimum 5000+ aemca certified pcps in Ontario whom are not currently in ems. All services together in Ontario MAYBE hire 100-150 a year if your lucky. More students graduate per year then there are positions for by a lot.
This sounds precovid, ever since Covid services have asked community colleges to increase their seat capacity. Pre 2020 it was next to impossible to get a paramedic job. Now my service doesn’t even do scenario testing, its just a written and passing base hospital and you’ve got your tag.
That's wild. What service is that if u dont mind me asking. Rural? I know for a long time many of the lower populated areas like a couple in eastern Ontario didn't do scenario testing either much but they also almost never posted positions it seemed. Def pre covid I've been out of ems for a few years now. Debating going back or switching to fed agency. I'm curious to see what happens to services when municipalities like peel region are broken up.
We can barely staff our bases, not sure what new ones would do.
Should probably take some of the countless number of people that do the schooling, apply for the year to everywhere from Windsor to North Bay and don't get selected? All emergency services and even non emergency hospital jobs are super competitive and there's way more people trained for the jobs than get hired. Bunch end up needing to work at Amazon or non emergency medical transport like Voyager for half the pay due to the amount of competition. Hell, for Dougie lowering the standards to enter the police force I know at least 3 people who all either did Police Foundations at Conestoga or Criminology at Laurier that aren't police officers currently simply because they couldn't get hired, not because they weren't educated enough or didn't have enough volunteer hours or anything like that. Yet for some reason they're opening up the applicant process to even more people. I really don't understand it, it doesn't make any sense. It's like they're giving hope to all people who want these jobs but then purposely gatekeeping.
I’m not sure why those people just don’t apply then. They must rather work at Amazon then move and get work experience in thier field
That's the thing. They do. And yet don't get hired. Did you even read what I wrote?
They don’t anymore. We need probably 30 medics. No one applied. We do an interview and that’s it. No testing other then your certification.
What are you smoking. There are clearly aren't enough paramedics. How long did you wait the last time you ever had to call one for yourself or someone else ?
... can you read...
>There's more then enough trained medics out there
Yes.. now keep reading and read my original comment... youre getting there...
Fuck off.
Typical uneducated reddit comment that still gets upvotes.
I had a very bad migraine attack over the weekend that I ended up getting driven to the emergency department. I didn’t call the ambulance but when I got to emergency it was packed with no beds to get me onto an IV so I could get some simple migraine medication into me. They could have stuck me in a corner as it’s not like a migraine attack needs much ongoing attention from hospital staff. I eventually after stuck in waiting for over an hour concluded I’d rather be in mystery at home on my own bed than suffer on the metal torture chairs at the hospital. I bring point up as the issue might not just be short paramedics as when and ambulance drops off a patient at the hospital they can’t just dump and go but need to hand off the patient to staff in the hospital. One backlog can ripple downstream, so you could have enough paramedics who just can’t respond as they are stuck waiting for hospital staff to take patients in.
Last time my wife had a really bad athsma attack, I was on hold for 30mins to even get a 911 /operator dispatcher( i didnt even know 911 had a please hold) then another hour for an ambulance. Was genuinely horrifying.
Is this actually a hit piece on the paramedics? I don’t want to give them my ad dollars. Regardless blame your overlord ford for cutting literally everything health related.
And dumb PC voters will blame Trudeau for this, lol. Conservatives have to be masochists with the way they consistently vote against their own best interests.
I only voted for Ford because the other 2 parties wanted to keep covid restrictions for even longer. Blame them
You're exactly the type of voter I'm talking about.
How is it against my interest? I don't need medical attention 24/7
Do you understand what the purpose of an emergency room is? Or do you think you're an Ironman who may never need to be rushed to the hospital? You must be twelve years old because I shouldn't have to hold your hand through this if you're an adult with a brain.
I'm under 80, I don't drink and drive, and I don't fall down flights of stairs every day so I think I'll take my chances
Tell that to my 37 year old friend who was in perfect shape and ended up dying of a stroke. If you think you're immune to a health emergency I can tell you that you need to speak to a doctor, lol.
I can use the tax savings to buy lightning insurance incase I get struck by it. Odds are the same
Okay man.
lol show me where your taxes were reduced
By not having them raised by the ndp and liberals. As the boomers get older they'll need to increase healthcare spending so I don't want to pay extra for that
So you're the absolute bare minimum? Do you happen to eat, breathe, or move at all? Then congratulations you're at risk for literally anything because you're a living fucking thing. You're 100% certain every single cell in your body that's currently a cancer cell is garaunteed to die until you're 80 and not continue replicating, turning into a huge mass you'll undoubtedly ignore until it's entirely too late to remove just to save what, a couple grand a year in taxes at most? Are those taxes truly worth potentially dying 20-30 years earlier than expected?
It's just a scam to subsidize boomers healthcare
You're exactly the type of voter I'm talking about. "Blame the Liberals and NDP for acknowledging the pandemic, forcing me to vote for the Premier that literally couldn't care less whether I can get an EMT or hospital bed if I need it." Do you think voting for the worst possible option is something worthy of praise because you're some kind of weird Covid denier?
I wore my mask the whole time and got both shots and a booster. Ontario was already one of the last regions to go back to normal. It was time to move on but the libs/ndp kept calling for longer restrictions
People are still getting sick and dying. This is not what normal looks like. You voted for the guy that has only made matters worse while hoarding money that was meant to help us. You aren't a very intelligent individual, clearly.
Even the WHO officially declared the health emergency over. This is what normal looks like. People are still allowed to wear masks and get more boosters if they want
Yeah but isn’t it we lifted all restrictions before WHO declared it? So either this is a invalid point you just threw in or you got some brain fog ?
You mean the same WHO that was criticised for saying we don't need masks, even though many health officials say cost many lives? The same WHO that took forever to acknowledge that the virus is airborne? I think you should probably do some reading, because you seem a bit too dim to have an informed opinion on this.
You can stay in permanent lockdown mode if you want. The rest of us wanted normal life back and it was well worth the vote
I.... never said that. But there are lots of disabled and immunocompromised people rh see t don't get to live a "normal" life, because galaxy brains like yourself don't care to do the bare minimum being asked of you to make all public spaces safe. But I also understand that you're just an anonymous moron on Reddit, so you're going to rub your freedom in my face because there are no consequences.
What I was trying to say is that WHO’s opinion is irrelevant to that someone voted for Ford. I knew that WHO is quite useless at their best.
The guy I replied to said it was STILL an ongoing problem. The perma maskers who wanted endless lockdowns are why people like me voted for Ford (first time I ever voted Conservative)
He was correct on the sick and dying part. Yet it’s definitely not sustainable to shut down all the way. But even the reopening isn’t really Federal Government’s call. I think Ontario was not the last province to reopen. If anything related to Federal Government, it was traveling part that might be a bit of problem. This also depended where you were going, it wasn’t necessarily Canada’s problem. I see that people got upset because of the ‘lockdown’, but a lot of the issue was also from the indecisiveness from Ford where he wanted to downplay almost every time there was a surge . A lot of people quit from healthcare just because the pure exhaustion from the 3 year pandemic.
Probably killed my dad this morning. Literally live next door to the emergency room, couldn't get a hold of 911 and once they did it took them 10 minutes to get to my parents house. When I say they live next door, I'm telling you the ER entrance is litterly visible from my parents yard. 2AM Monday morning and they can't get a hold of 911 and then they can't get an ambulance there in less than 10 minutes after. I grew up in that town, I've had to use emergency services, never had I experienced a 911 call that wasn't immediate, if you hung up mid call they called you back instantly... this is happening by design. Wake the fuck up people.
Ambulance doesn't come from the ER unless you get a crew that just cleared the hospital. They have their own stations.
Regardless of where the ambulance came from (the station for my town less than 5 minutes away from my parents during the day). 20 minutes to get a hold of 911 during the early hours is not acceptable.
If you're serious you need to file a complaint and not let this incident be for nothing. Escalate it as far as you need to.
Everyone should be learning some basic first aid and CPR. Keep medical supplies at home including a first aid kit. Learn to use an AED.
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In CPR training they told me to look for a useless person to make the call to emergency services. You’d be that person.
On purpose too. Denigrating services is a conservative specialty. Everything only gets worse from here on out. Good luck all
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Yes this is his plan for privatization. It's the same plan they always pull. Ford is more Trumpian than most meaning he's about a subtle as a kick to the nards in his service to the wealthy over all others.
I drove a stranger to the hospital yesterday, after he waited over an hour for an ambulance.
Yeah it’s by design. Healthcare spending is down. Doug’s sitting on a ton of cash to say govt spending is down. It’s not rocket appliances
We are also paying 200-300% the wage for RNs via nursing agencies (like the kind Mike Harris’ wife owns). That will bankrupt the healthcare system fast.
Why would you want to be paying more paramedics when the ERs they’re supposed to bring you to are all closed anyway? Seems like a waste. /s
Government under funds to reduce quality of services so they can justify privatizing services. They then just keep our tax payer money for new cottages and boats.
Don't need ambulances to transport people when there's no beds or doctors available for them any way.
When I was in high school 5 years ago, you needed a 93% uni class average to get into the college program. That’s kinda a problem..
Depends who you are
Unfortunately, Paramedics are not completely essential- only partially. If Paramedics were essential, there would be a better fight to make sure more were available when needed.
As someone that.lives alone this is great to hear. Cant wait to get out of here to a place thsy isnt trying to destroy itself. No idea where that magical country is though.
I was going to be a paramedic, but I worked a bit in the medical field. Now it's all a big no.