![]() ![]() While there are some universal codes, such as 10-4 and 10-20, most law enforcement agencies have different meanings for their codes. Provincial NDP leader Andrea Horwath released a statement about the issue Tuesday morning, taking aim at hospital closures from the Conservative government in the Harris years, and Liberal spending freezes in recent years.This can lead to communication barriers between agencies. Posteraro also said that this problem isn't news for the mayor, who routinely gets requests for more funding for paramedics. ![]() It is unnacceptable." 'This happens every day' "We continue to play Russian roulette with the health and well being of our citizens. "We continue to apply band aids and promises to problems that require dollars and common sense." "We're prolonging emergency response times, causing pain and suffering for a very vulnerable segment of our population," Posteraro said. That means 74 times this month, Hamilton paramedics were more than double that marker. The provincial benchmark for arrival times that paramedics strive to hit on non-emergency calls is 25 minutes. The union representing local paramedics says that Hamilton's EMS workers are being pushed to the limit. They were then left to wait over an hour in searing pain for help. Mario Posteraro, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 256, which represents Hamilton paramedics, says that some of these "lower priority" problems were seniors who had slipped, fallen, and broken bones. While there were no reported deaths this month, the city says there have been 74 patients with lower priority problems like fractures and general illness who have had to wait more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive. The coroner's office is now investigating the circumstances around the death of 71-year-old Catherine Terry, who died of a heart attack during a code zero. The city says it is "not aware of any clinically adverse outcomes or fatalities" as a result of ambulance shortages, but there was at least one in July. Mayor Fred Eisenberger says he plans to meet with the heads of the city's ambulance, fire, and police services as well as members of provincial parliament to address the city's healthcare issues. 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.
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