Faced with increasing call volumes and off-loading delays, a temporary staffing addition to Wellington-Guelph Paramedic Services (GWPS) has been made permanent.
A 12-hour shift was added through a 2021 city budget request. In approving changes to the 2023 budget last week, council made the roles a regular part of the schedule and moved up a review of the service’s master plan from 2025 to this year.
“It would be inappropriate or really negative to decrease staffing,” GWPS chief Stephen Dewar said, referring to a growing community need.
With the exception of the previously temporary hours, the next staffing increase wasn’t expected until 2025, though that’s no longer on tap.
Unless changed in the master plan update, four more full-time equivalent positions will be added in 2026.
“We had paramedics caring for patients for more than 11,000 hours in hospital,” Dewar said of last year, explaining the first 30 minutes don't count because that’s the expected time frame for transferring patients from paramedics to hospital staff – over and above that is considered an off-loading delay. “Some of (those hours are) with two paramedics.
“That dramatically impacts our ability to respond to other emergencies in as timely a manner as we’d like to.”
The province covers half the cost of paramedic services, with the City of Guelph chipping in 30 per cent and the County of Wellington taking care of the other 20 per cent.
The unpredictability of off-loading delays makes it difficult to schedule around, Dewar said.
“It’s not every day and it’s not all of the time,” he said. “On some days we can have eight, 10, 12 crews in off-load delay. We can’t add 24 paramedics one day and then not add them for another week.
“We either add them full-time or we don’t.”
In addition to maintaining the pandemic-inspired shift increase, GWPS has applied to the provincial government for an off-loading nurse to assist at Guelph General Hospital, where a vast majority of delays occur.
“We’ve heard some positive feedback,” Dewar said of that effort. “We’re still waiting for an announcement from the province.”
There has been one code red so far in 2023. That’s when there are no ambulances available to respond to emergency calls.
Dewar noted that incident lasted for about 10 minutes, during which several paramedics were stuck in off-loading delays.
“They continue to be a concern.”
