Prince Edward County is looking at expanding its ambulance service.
During a presentation to Prince Edward County Committee of the Whole on Thursday, Chief of Hastings Quinte Paramedic Services Carl Bowker, explained how an increase of ambulance calls in Prince Edward County is forcing them to rely on ambulances from Belleville and Quinte West, leaving those communities short-staffed.
Bowker proposed increasing ambulance staffing. Prince Edward County operates two ambulances during the day and one overnight. Both ambulances operate from a station in Picton. With increased staffing, both ambulances could run 24 hours a day.
Since 2007, there has been a 42% increase in call volume, however, staffing levels for ambulances in Prince Edward County have remained unchanged during this period. Overnight calls when only one ambulance is staffed have gone up 53%. Response times to emergency calls have gone up approximately three minutes on average over the same period.
Overnight, when only one ambulance is operating out of Picton, ambulances from Belleville or Quinte West are responding to 40% of calls.
During the presentation, Bowker explained that operating both ambulances 24/7 would be more cost effective than paying for ambulance response from neighbouring communities and would provide faster response times. Because there is already a second ambulance that isn’t being used overnight, a new ambulance would not need to be purchased, reducing the cost of expanding the service.
Quinte West and Belleville ambulances would still respond to some calls in the area north of Prince Edward County, if those ambulances are closer to the emergency.
During discussions about the request, Councillor Phil St-Jean pointed out that the increased demand for ambulance service wasn’t going to go away.
“It’s a significant increase over the last few years, and clearly it’s not going to change,” said Councillor St-Jean. “Mainly because, I’m gonna come out and say it, our population demographic. We have a very old population here.”
The committee voted to recommend council direct staff to look into potential funding sources to pay for the additional ambulance staff and present the report findings to the upcoming March 28 council meeting.
