A new report investigating ambulance service in Nova Scotia finds they are spending a significant amount of time waiting in emergency departments to off-load patients.
Fitch and Associates released the long-delayed report on Monday and it contains 68 recommendations in total – 64 of which have already been implemented and built into a new collective agreement.
The firm also points out that ambulances are often tied up responding to requests to transfer patients between facilities. Fitch classifies these tasks as non-emergencies and lead to situations where ambulance coverage is stretched thin in the province.
A social media page run by the union representing paramedics has gained attention over its Code Critical hashtag and has been tracking ambulance shortages in the province.
The report was ready in 2019 but was not released because of contract negotiations between the province and operator Emergency Medical Care.
Minister of Health and Wellness, Zach Churchill, announced on Monday that negotiations with the province’s current EHS provider, Emergency Medical Care are now complete.
“EHS is an essential part of Nova Scotians’ access to health care. Our new contract with Emergency Medical Care will redesign the system to provide the right resource, to the right person, at the right time, for the right reason,” said Churchill. “The delivery of emergency health care and the needs of our province has evolved and we are making the necessary changes to modernize and improve our system.”
The EHS operations contract includes ground ambulance, medical communications centre, LifeFlight Management and EHS specialty services and associated fleet maintenance, and administrative requirements.
The new contract will be in effect as of April 1.
Meantime, Churchill has also issued a directive for Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) to bring down ambulance offload times.
The directive will set the standard time for offload from ambulance to emergency departments and from emergency departments to elsewhere in the health system.
The NSHA will develop and implement the necessary protocols to meet the standards.
