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BBQ RockClimbing WallHelp us send local kids to Camp! Georgetown South Tim Hortons (Argyle and Mountainview) 2nd Annual Camp Day Fundraiser! 10 am to 8 pm Please join us for this family fun filled event this Wednesday, June 4th, 2008. All coffee proceeds for the 24 hour period to be donated to the Tim Hortons Children Foundation! Featuring activities for the whole family: Prize Wheel, Face Painting, Childrens Games, Special Guests, Pop-a-Balloon. Great prizes to be won! Larry Melton Band Bouncy Castle Drinking and Driving Can Distort Life. Drink and drive, and your life may never be the same again. You not only risk your life when you drink and drive, you also risk losing your license, incurring expensive fines, doing time in jail or even causing injury or death to an inno- cent bystander. With all these conse- quences facing you, driving under the influence is the worst decision you can make. Dont take chances with drinking and driving; theres always a bet- ter alternative. Acton/Georgetown, Friday, May 30, 2008 9 The Region is turning to the Province for help with hospital offloading delays, which take up much of Halton paramedics time and sometimes leave no ambulances available for local residents. At its meeting Wednesday, regional council passed a motion that directs Regional Chair Gary Carr to write to the minister of health and long- term care regarding the urgent need for a province-wide approach to the issues contribut- ing to offloading delays. The resolution also asks that the Province work with hospital emergency departments to resolve the delays in an expedient manner. High call volumes and hospital offloading delays continue to tie up Halton paramedics, resulting in several occasions last year when no ambulances were available to respond to local calls. Were saying in a community this size we need to ensure the safety of our citizens, and also that our ambulances are needed on an emergency basis, said Carr. Offloading delays occur when a hospitals at capacity and cant provide a bed for a patient brought in by ambulance. Paramedics must there- fore continue providing care to the patient at the hospital, usually in the emergency department hallway, preventing the ambulance from leaving and being used for another emergency. Late last year, the Region started tracking the frequency of periods when a limited number of ambulances are available to service the region. Staff found there were 19 occasions and a total of more than 11 hours when four or fewer ambu- lances were available for all of Halton in November, with one occasion when no ambu- lances were available for about five minutes. Then in December there were 36 occasions when four or less ambulances were available that totaled 14.5 hours. There were also three occa- sions that month totaling one hour when no ambulances were available. Halton Director of Land Ambulance Services Jim King explained when the local EMS is down to four or less ambulances, supervisory staff is sent out in first response vehicles. All of our supervisory staff are advanced care paramedics, he said. We send them to areas where were experiencing higher call volumes. He said dispatch also notifies Peel Region and the City of Hamilton to try to get some of their ambulances on stand-by on the Halton border. Its still a concerning situation to us because we like to have our ambulances available, King said. The amount of time lost to offloading delays each day is equivalent to two ambulances being out of service of an entire 12-hour shift, stated a report from Halton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Bob Nosal. For 2007, this added up to 8,851 hours of vehicle staffing lost at an estimated cost of more than $1.2 million. Emergency call demand for Halton EMS also increased by 150 per cent between 1996 and 2007 something thats stretching local resources. Nosals report said that the periods of limited resources significantly impact the workload of frontline paramedics. On a regular basis, meal breaks are delayed or missed entirely due to call volume and para- medics are currently spending the majority of their working hours on task, with a limited amount of time actually spent in the station, the report explained. Limited resources also impact supervisory staff that are frequently required to service emer- gency calls and provide emergency coverage for prolonged periods of time, which in turn impacts on the supervisors abilities to complete adminis- trative supervisory functions. King said the recent addition of two peak- demand ambulances seems to have helped the sit- uation a bit. He also noted that the offloading delays boil down to a systemic problem in the healthcare system. There are a lot of patients in the hospital that could go to long-term care homes if there were beds available for them, he said. Despite the delays at the hospital, Haltons EMS response time has been below the mandated standard since 2001. The Region is continuing to work with local hospitals, the Halton-Peel Emergency Services Network and the Local Health Integration Networks to develop strategies to manage offload delays. Delays have left Halton with no available ambulances Region seeks Provincial help MELANIE HENNESSEY Special to The IFP