Belleville Councillor Egerton Boyce at Hastings-Quinte Emergency Services meeting, June 13, 2018 (Photo: Mary Thomas/Quinte News)
Hastings-Quinte Emergency Services is putting up a fight against the use of emergency ambulances for non-emergency hospital transfers.
At the Emergency Services meeting in Belleville Wednesday, the committee decided to take some action, both locally and at the provincial level.
For years, the committee has been concerned about ambulances being used for these transfers.
It ties up crews and the service gets none of the $45 that a member of the public pays for each transfer.
Belleville Councillor Egerton Boyce told the committee the process has been broken for a while and it’s at a critical point. Rather than pay for a service, they (hospitals) are calling us and they don’t pay us.”
Boyce said, “They are using ambulances the wrong way, saving on their budget but putting people at risk.”
Hastings County CAO Jim Pine told Quinte News, “The last time we did numbers we were talking in the range of $600,000 a year we calculated to the Ministry (of Health) and the hospitals.”
Hastings County CAO Jim Pine at Hastings-Quinte Emergency Services meeting, June 13, 2018 (Photo: Mary Thomas/Quinte News)
Pine says he doesn’t know why the private transfer companies, sometimes used by hospitals, can’t handle all these transfers.
#2 PINE TRANSFER
Emergency services officials will meet with the hospitals and meet with the new minister of health at the Association of Municipalities meeting in Ottawa in August.
