Extended pilot at Montfort Hospital seeks to free up ambulances faster

A pilot program placing paramedics inside Montfort Hospital's emergency department has been extended, with the hopes of putting ambulances back on the road faster and avoiding situations where no emergency vehicles are able to respond to incoming calls.

When patients are taken to an emergency department without an available bed, the paramedics that brought them thereare often held up waiting for a physician to take over.

The pilot project places paramedicsin the department 12 hours a dayto care for upto four patients at once, under the medical direction of an emergency department physician, so that transporting crews can head back out in an ambulance.

Ottawa has been facing an unprecedented number of "level zeros," where there are no ambulances available to respond to emergencies.

Ottawa's paramedic chief Pierre Poirier said the city has experienced 1,500 such incidents in 2022 so far. That's meant more than 64,000 minutes or more than 1,000 hours where no ambulances were able to respond.

"It's not just the paramedic problem, and it's not just a hospital problem," said Pierre Poirier, Ottawa's paramedic chief, about the "level zero" incidents.

"It's a community problem."

On Tuesday, the hospital and the Ottawa Paramedic Service announced the extension of the pilot in a news release. It originally started in June and was intended for three months.

It's now been extended until September 2023.

Mayor Jim Watson hadasked the province this summerto fund 42 new paramedicjobs in the city to help avoid "level zero"incidents.

"We need this kind of a program and expansion of this program in all three hospitals and, eventually, I suspect CHEO as well," the mayor said.

Poirier said talks with Ottawa's other hospitals are underway.

Councillor recounts personal experience

Orleans East-Cumberland Coun. Matthew Luloff, who attended the press conference, called his first-hand experience with a level zerothe "most harrowing experiences that somebody might go through."

In September 2019, his newborn daughter had difficulty breathing for the first three and a half hours of her life.

The family was in need of an ambulance.

"I can't explain how devastating and awful it felt as you watched this brand new child struggle with all of her might to breathe," the councillor said.

Darryl Wilton, president of the Professional Paramedic Association of Ottawa, called programs like thislong overdue.He says the term "level zero" can actually represent a long waiting list.

"You keep hearing about level zero, but the reality is, in the last year, we've often been far below it," he said.

"So level minus 10, minus 14 minus 30, minus 40. And that indicates there's calls waiting."