Increased patient transfer times at Guelph General Hospital have prompted the writing of a letter to Ontario's health minister Christine Elliott to advocate the resolving of the issue.
The letter, which was backdated to March 22 and released by the City of Guelph on Friday, is co-authored by Kelly Linton, Centre Wellington mayor and county warden, and Guelph mayor Cam Guthrie.
The letter follows a March 9 report to county council from Stephen Dewar, chief of the Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Service, which outlines the increasing number and length of delays at Guelph General Hospital and how these delays affect paramedic service response times.
The Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Service has applied for the Dedicated Offload Nurse program - which sees the province fund the paramedic service to form an agreement with a local hospital to hire nursing staff to specifically care for patients in offload delay.
“This funding would help address offload delays so that our communities can be assured an ambulance will be there, if and when they need it. We also appreciate your consideration of this growing issue in Guelph, Wellington County, and across Ontario. We encourage the Province to work with our communities and paramedic service providers to jointly tackle this issue,” the letter from Linton and Guthrie reads.
The report from Dewar explained that upon entering a hospital, paramedics must provide a report to a hospital staff member who is assuming care for their patient.
A standard set by the province indicates this should occur within 30 minutes of arrival 90 per cent of the time.
GWPS cared for patients in offload delay - greater than 30 minutes- for more than 4,800 hours in 2021.
Beginning in August 2021, Dewar’s report noted that offload delays have increased significantly and for prolonged periods of time.
“By the end of October 2021, ambulance offload delays were occurring almost daily, with between three and eight ambulances in delay in some instances greater than four hours,” the report reads.
The letter from Linton and Guthrie further expands on this point, stating offload delays were rare at GGH before August 2021.
“By late October 2021, we experienced offload delays almost daily, sometimes for greater than 4 hours. This has led to longer response times as well as periods of time when no ambulances were available in the City of Guelph and in surrounding communities serviced by the Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Service. Mitigation strategies put in place by the hospital and the paramedic service have helped, but they have not resolved the issue,” the letter reads.
