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The Ottawa Paramedic Service hasn’t given up hope on using taxis to transport low-acuity patients even though the province has said no to the proposal.
Earlier this week, Paramedic Chief Paul Poirier sent a memo to city council saying Ontario’s Ministry of Health had rejected Ottawa’s Safe Alternative Transportation Program. The pilot project, which the city hoped to have running last November, would have allowed paramedics to assess patients and decide if it was safe to send them to their family doctors or other appropriate health clinics by cab, freeing up ambulance from potentially lengthy waits at hospitals.
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But a letter to the City of Ottawa signed by Assistant Deputy Minister of Health Susan Picarello said: “The ministry does not approve the use of 911 paramedics to co-ordinate alternate transportation options to the emergency department/hospital, including taxi services.”
That wording leaves open the possibility of using community paramedics, those who don’t respond to 911 calls, but do perform primary care, Poirier said.
“We haven’t given up on it. There is an option for us to use a community paramedic who could, on occasion when it’s safe to do so, to provide that option of a taxi to transport that patient to hospital,” he said.
“What is said in the letter is not to use 911 paramedics to provide that service. Sometimes it isn’t what is said, but what is not said. So there may be options for us to provide that service in a different way.”
The Safe Alternative Transport Program was proposed as a way to free up ambulances and reduce the number of “Level Zero” events in Ottawa, meaning times when there were no available ambulances to respond to calls.
In 2022, the Ottawa Paramedic Service was at Level Zero 1,313 times for a total of 53,885 minutes. In 90 per cent of all 911 calls, ambulances and paramedics were tied up hospitals for 2.5 hours or more, waiting to transfer care to hospital staff.
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That situation is improving, Poirier said. Details about offload times and Level Zero events in 2023 will be delivered to council in June, he said.
“The real challenge we have continues to be offload delay and that is a provincial responsibility, a hospital responsibility,” said Kim Ayotte, the city’s general manager of Emergency and Protective Services.
“So my clear message is for the province to deal with that issue because we are putting funding and more ambulances and more paramedics on the road to deal with those cardiac issues, those high-priority calls.”
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said he was surprised the province had said no to the taxi plan.
“That kind of creative solution is exactly what we need. I was a little bit surprised that the province wasn’t in agreement with that option,” Sutcliffe said.
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