REGINA - The issue of not enough ambulances for emergency calls in the province was back in prominence at the legislature Tuesday.
During Question Period, Opposition MLAs including Leader Carla Beck roasted the government over their latest NDP Freedom of Information request. Those documents obtained from Saskatchewan Health Authority stated that from Feb. 14 to Oct. 2 of this year, no local ambulance was available to respond to 1,132 calls for emergency help.
These numbers did not count communities serviced by private ambulances, such as Saskatoon and Prince Albert.
The ambulance issue has gained prominence at the Legislature again recently, in part due to an incident that occurred late last month. The MLA for Saskatoon Centre, Betty Nippi-Albright, fell and was injured on the steps of the legislature following a winter storm that brought snow and icy conditions. Nippi-Albright stated on social media that she had to wait for an ambulance for an hour and a half before finally being transported to hospital by peace officers.
Minister of Rural and Remote Health Tim McLeod had indicated to reporters at the time that illness and staffing challenges had been a factor, as they were down three ambulances in the City of Regina that day. But the latest NDP numbers released on Tuesday pointed to several other instances in Regina of no local ambulances being available as well.
According to the Freedom of Information numbers, there were 323 instances in Regina from February to October where no local ambulance was available to immediately respond to calls.
The numbers also pointed to high numbers outside the city. Over half of the instances, 579, were in rural areas and in the North it was 172.
Other communities seeing high numbers of no ambulance available calls included Cut Knife at 76, La Loche with 70, Meadow Lake 58, Buffalo Narrows 56, Shaunavon 36, Beauval 35, Melville 33, Esterhazy 31, Whitewood 30, and Indian Head at 28.
“This tired and out-of-touch government have been in power for 16 years. And let’s be clear: this is their record,” Beck said in the Legislature during Question Period. “How does this government justify to the rural members of this caucus that 579 times their constituents needed an ambulance but no local ambulance was available?”
In response to the barrage from the Opposition Tuesday, Minister of Health Everett Hindley stated that while there were challenges, “we are taking steps, Mr. Speaker.”
“For example, here in the city of Regina earlier this year, February, we announced $2.4 million for twenty-four and a half additional FTE positions to staff two more ambulances in the city of Regina. As I said previously, meeting regularly with the leadership both at the SHA, with Medavie, with the Paramedic Services Chiefs, and our ministry officials to continue to work to make progress in this very important area for people across our province, Mr. Speaker.”
In speaking to reporters afterwards, Hindley said he was “very grateful for all of our paramedics, our ground ambulance services across Saskatchewan.”
“We’ve made some significant investments into the area of ground EMS to make sure we’re doing everything we can to support them, recognizing of course we do have some challenges, and we recognize that and that’s why, as I said today, we’re working very closely with the leadership both of the SHA and the ministry, but I meet regularly with groups like the leadership at Medavie, and with individual private operators and with the SHA as well, to hear from front line paramedics as to what’s happening out there, what’s working, where are some of the challenges that we’re facing, and I get from them some ideas.”
One challenge Hindley did acknowledge was of paramedics departing the field for higher paying jobs with fire departments or other career paths where their paramedic training qualifications are in demand. He said this is an issue that has been raised with them.
“We want to ensure that number one, as we’re training people, we’re keeping them here in Saskatchewan — that would be our most important priority. But secondly, we also need to try and do as much as we can within what limits we have to ensure that we are filling those vacancies that we have in our ambulance services with these graduates that are coming out, again knowing they have an a lot of options coming out of school. So we are investigating what that might look like to help better entice people to take these vacant positions or perhaps vacant positions that may be coming open in our ground EMS service.”
Opposition Health Critic Vicki Mowat saw this as yet one more failure by the government on health care.
“It’s really disappointing to see a government that is failing on so many fronts,” said Mowat to reporters. “We see the failing when it comes to accessing our ambulances when people need them. I think everyone expects when you call for an ambulance and you’re in an emergency situation one is going to be available, so it’s jarring and incredibly concerning to see data that shows this is a daily occurrence when there are multiple times a day — it averages out to about five times a day in the last eight months — when there is no ambulance available when someone calls."
"And this doesn’t even include Saskatoon or Prince Albert, because those are privately owned services. So this number is much larger as well. It’s incredibly concerning, these are our loved ones, these are our family members that are laying on the floor waiting for care in an emergency. And this government needs to take responsibility for that and they need to take concrete actions to fix the problem.”
As for how the government should respond, Mowat said they needed to “get to the table to talk to health care workers, talk to communities to find out what they’re looking for.” She also wanted to see mental health supports for paramedics as well.
As for the 24 new positions announced for Regina, Mowat said that from what she heard from paramedics only 12 had been filled.
“So they like to talk, put on a big show about what’s happening right now, have a good announcement, but really what’s happening on the ground is people are burning out and people are leaving at the same rate that they’re able to recruit, so that shows they are not able to retain those folks. They’re burning out, they’re taking leaves of absence, they’re leaving their positions. They’re going off to Fire (departments), a lot of them. So you see this mass exodus of paramedics, and you have to ask what’s happening and how can we fix the problem?”
