Patient volume increase causes ambulance shortage in Hamilton

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In Hamilton, January has been the busiest month in 2 years for emergency services. There were times last month that virtually all of the city’s ambulances were tied up and couldn’t handle any more calls.

Hamilton EMS calls a code zero when there is one or no ambulances available to attend to calls. Chief of Hamilton EMS Michael Sanders says this happened 21 times in the month of January and that paramedics are getting tied up at hospitals.

Nurse manager of St. Joseph hospital’s emergency department, Tara Coffin-Simpson says the hospital aims to take a patient from paramedics in 30 minutues, the average last month was 45.

“Usually we see about 45 patients a day by EMS and we are seeing upwards of 50, 51 to 55 patients a day. We have seen 61 patients one day in January.”

EMS says call volume increased 7% since last year and St. Joseph’s hospital says one of the main issues as to why it takes the hospital longer to off load a patient is because of the influx of patients coming in at once.

“Sometimes we may have 4 ambulances arrive all at the same time. Sometimes we have upwards of 6 or 8 ambulances arriving at almost the same time.”

During the day, there are 28 staffed ambulances responding to calls in Hamilton. At night there are 18. Sanders says during the month of January 2 extra ambulances had to be put on the road to help with demand.

During a code zero, ambulances from our surrounding regions respond to Hamilton calls. Just as Hamilton EMS often times respond to Halton, Niagara and other regions. St. Joseph’s hospital says there are many patients with the flu, but in general patients have been coming in sicker with a variety of illnesses.