Where the ambulance roams

(L-R) Paramedics Carl Blankenhorn and Doug Caron are two of the first responders who will ride an ambulance around Wellington, ready for an emergency in the County’s west end.

Paramedics in the County go west

Last summer, a man suffered heart failure at the golf course in Wellington. As his friends and colleagues provided what help they could, a contingent of emergency vehicles screamed through the County.

As the seconds ticked past, cars swung out of the way in Bloomfield, making tourists leaving Sandbanks wonder what natural disaster could have befallen this peaceful place for such a frantic procession.

The patient was revived, and survived the emergency. But it brought up an important problem.

The average wait time for an ambulance in the County’s west end is 12 minutes. In that amount of time, someone who might otherwise survive—with the treatment a first responder is trained to provide—could die.

Seconds and minutes mean the difference between life and death.

This week, the Hastings Quinte Emergency Medical Services (HQEMS) started a pilot project, a roaming ambulance service based in Wellington. The project will run until October. It’s a project the County commissioned from HQEMS in an attempt to reduce response times.

The vehicle, normally based in Picton, will wander through the west end of the County. It will cover the areas farthest away from Trenton, Belleville or Picton, where there are already ambulance services in place.

“The fact that Prince Edward County is a single tier—it’s like the city of Prince Edward County. In that city, we have to go to Waupoos, and we have to go to Ameliasburgh and Rednersville and so on,” says HQEMS chief John O’Donnell. “So you’re talking over 1,000 square kilometres. To get to any one particular place, you just don’t instantly get there. There’s delays. We’re trying to improve response times. That’s why we’re going to give this a whirl.”

This is the first time HQEMS has officially implemented a roaming ambulance. Any ambulance driving is considered roaming. These ambulances are always considered closer to an emergency, because they bypass the nearly two-minute delay to pull the vehicle out of a depot after getting a call.

“We mapped out where the majority of our calls happen in Prince Edward County, and a lot of our calls are in the west and the north part, when you talk Consecon, Ameliasburgh, Rednersville, and that area, and then Wellington up to that area,” says O’Donnell.

There are other ways to ensure quicker responses. Community centres and other public places can have a defibrillator available and train people to use it. HQEMS also works with other emergency service providers, including firefighters, to ensure a patient can get help as soon as possible.

More ambulances and more staff would always help, says O’Donnell, but it’s an expensive venture.

Recently, another ambulance was added from Belleville to relieve high call volumes to the County between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. That pilot project cost over $350,000 for just half a year, a bill footed by the County. Such projects qualify for funding from the provincial government, but only after the first year. Since the total annual cost for the service was $750,000, the province only footed a quarter of the bill in year two.

O’Donnell says the logistics are still being worked out. The ambulance closest to a call is the one to respond, regardless of the municipality it’s serving. The roaming ambulance will use the firehall in Wellington as a post for now, but the details will be ironed out as the project goes forward.

“This week, we’ll see how it goes. We’re going to work with staff—I’ve talked to them—and we’ll just find out what works best for everybody,” says O’Donnell. “The main thing is to get the coverage in there.