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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, July 23, 2015 | 18 Time to get tough with hospital offloading: Carr by Bob Mitchell Oakville Beaver Staff It's time to get tough with the Province regarding hospital off-loading problems, says Halton Regional Chairman Gary Carr. But before drastic measures are taken, the Region will make one last-ditch effort to express its concerns with Ontario's Minister of Health, local MPPs and hospital administrators. Hospital staff increases and bed funding haven't kept pace with Halton's population growth, resulting in patients regularly being cared for by paramedics in hospital waiting rooms while they wait for nurses to attend and for beds to become available. There have also been dispatched delays. In fact, at times last year, there wasn't a single ambulance available to respond to emergencies, according to a report that headed to Regional Council last week. Paramedics transported 26,784 patients to Halton hospitals last year -- an increase of 4.7 per cent from 2013 and 8,000 more (a 41.6 per cent increase) than were transported a decade ago, according to the Paramedic Services annual report submitted to Regional Health and Social Services committee members this July. The report also indicated targets for response times for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and the most-ill category for patient transfers weren't met in 2014. Halton raised the issue of dispatching and off-loading delays during the last provincial election, Burlington Councillor Rick Craven told committee members. "I understand we got no response from any of the candidates in the last provincial election," Craven said. Instead of just sending a "nice letter," Craven said the Region must take a more aggressive approach. "We need to put our MPPs on the spot," he said. His motion, approved by committee halton.ca 311 NOTICE OF CONSTRUCTION Resurfacing of Trafalgar Road (Reg. Rd. 3) from Cornwall Road to just North of Cross Ave/South Service Road, in the Town of Oakville (Night Time Work) members and then council, directs staff to arrange for the Regional Chair, the chair of the Health and Social Services board, hospital administrators and Halton's Medical Officer of Health (MOH) to meet with Halton MPPs to discuss the challenges created by having a central dispatch and hospital off-loading. Regional officials also intend to meet with the Minister of Health next month at an Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) meeting. Hospital off-load delays are a systemic healthcare issue, predominantly caused by a lack of in-patient hospital beds. This results in admitted patients occupying beds in emergency rooms, indicated the report presented by Dr. Hamidah Meghani, Halton's MOH. Paramedics are required to provide care for patients while they're waiting in emergency departments for beds until the hospital accepts them and begins providing care. But the reality is that very few patients are off-loaded within 30 minutes as identified by the Province as the target time -- from the time paramedics arrive at a hospital's emergency department until their ambulance is ready to respond to another call. "We're asking our paramedics, who are the best in the world, to go out there... and then they spend a lot of time sitting around hospitals on off-load delays," Carr said. "It's not fair to them and we need to do everything we can to get a resolution." The document reported that delays last year in Halton totalled 18,074 hours at a cost of $3.8 million. These delays and costs have steadily increased over the past decade. In 2014, the $3.8 million cost was $500,000 more than in 2013 when 14,888 hours of delays were experienced. In 2014, there were 284 times when offload delays meant there were four or fewer ambulances available to respond to emergencies for a total of 372 hours. There were also 18 times, a total five hours and 22 minutes, when there wasn't a single ambulance ready to respond. Off-load delay also impacts on missed meal breaks and the number of times paramedics are required to remain at work beyond the end of their shift, the report said. Halton health staff ,earlier this year, submitted a proposal to the Province to increase dedicated off-load nurse staffing to 24/7 at Joseph Brant Hospital and Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) and for 12/7 in Milton for 2015-2016. This would provide 21,900 hours of off-load nursing staffing at an estimated cost of $1 million. But the Province notified the Region in May that funding would remain the same as 2014-15 allocation thereby providing only 10,000 hours of dedicated off-load nursing. see Halton on p.21 GLEN ABBEY'S ONLY AUTHENTIC BRITISH PUB! MONDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHTS CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH ANY OTHER OFFER. 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