Orangeville ambulance attends Hamilton call as ‘Code Zero’ events reach ‘unprecedented levels’

The president of the Hamilton paramedics union says the frequency of Code Zero" events in the city has surged to unprecedented levels."

A Code Zero is when one or no ambulances are available to respond to emergencies in the city.

An incident last week, shared to social media by Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 231 - which represents paramedics in Guelph and Wellington County - paints just how grim the picture is.

In a tweet dated Oct. 12, the union wrote that an Orangeville ambulance, operated by the Dufferin County Paramedic Service, had responded to a call that was holding" in Dundas.

Orangeville is an approximately one-hour-and-15-minute drive away from the west Hamilton community.

Imagine that is your mother, spouse or best friend," read the tweet.

Chief Tom Reid of the Dufferin County Paramedic Service confirmed the report to The Spectator, noting that the Code 3 call - meaning it was non-life threatening but urgent - began on the evening of Oct. 11 and was completed by the early morning of Oct. 12.

The patient was eventually transported to St. Joseph's Healthcare, Reid noted.

OPSEU Local 256 president Mario Posteraro told The Spectator the incident is emblematic" of the current situation facing Hamilton's paramedic services.

Code zeros are a daily occurrence," said Posteraro. And they're increasing in both frequency and duration."

In an email to The Spectator, the Hamilton Paramedic Service said the city has experienced 310 Code zeros so far this year as of Friday - 18 of the events being in the preceding three days.

The number is a record for the service, according to its chief.

Posteraro said, although Code Zero events have been an ongoing problem, the rate at which the city's own paramedics are unable to respond to calls in their own community has reached an all-time high."

And he believes the situation will likely get worse as the upcoming flu season and predicted COVID wave begin.

We're failing our patients," said Posteraro. And our most vulnerable citizens."

Chief Mike Sanderson of the Hamilton Paramedic Service told The Spectator that Code Zero events are directly related to the growing amount and increasingly long offload delays at local hospitals.

The past week in particular has been extremely challenging" for the service, he said. On Wednesday alone, the service lost 337 hours of ambulance time due to offload delays at hospitals.

Sanderson said at nearly every staffed ambulance was on offload delay one point that day and some patients waited upward of 13 hours before they were transferred into the care of the hospital.

Our staff are extremely stressed and they're feeling the pressure," said Sanderson. They are just going from one call to the next and not getting their breaks."

As to the incident on Tuesday, Sanderson could not speak to where the Orangeville ambulance was before it got the call, but he was aware of the response.

He did however note that nearby ambulances will often be dispatched to Hamilton calls - regardless of their home base.

So far this year there have been 1,083 responses in the city by outside paramedic services, while Hamilton's ambulances have been pulled to nearly 300 nonlocal calls, according to data provided to The Spectator.

The incident involving the out-of-town ambulance comes on the heels of a leaked provincial report that showed Hamilton-area emergency departments are among the most strained in Ontario.

More patients went by ambulance to emergency rooms in the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand and Brant Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) than anywhere else in the province from April to August.

And it's a long wait once they arrive, with 90 per cent of patients spending up to 51 hours in the emergency department - the third-highest in the province, according to the report.

The incident is also not unique to Hamilton.

Earlier this week, The Record reported that paramedics from the Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Service were called to service the Waterloo Region.

Posteraro said the situation staring down at the service has been caused by inadequate funding" and Band-Aid solutions" across the health-care system.

It's a disaster playing out in real time," Posteraro said.

Sanderson said more needs to be done at the provincial level to ensure paramedics can offload in a timely manner and continue to be able to serve their community.

Our role is not to staff hospital hallways," said Sanderson. There has to be a solution."

Fallon Hewitt is a reporter at The Spectator. fhewitt@thespec.com