When the City of Ottawa is short on ambulances and paramedics, the services of Prescott-Russell are called into action, but that is putting pressure on the local emergency response services.
The United Counties of Prescott and Russell (UCPR), along with other regional governments in Eastern Ontario, continue to seek solutions for challenges associated with their paramedic services responding to calls in neighbouring jurisdictions.
UCPR paramedics regularly respond to calls in the City of Ottawa when not enough paramedics and ambulance vehicles from the city’s own service are not available. However, the time devoted by UCPR paramedics to responses in Ottawa results in a shortage of paramedics and vehicles available to respond quickly to calls for service in the UCPR.
On August 24, UCPR Council approved the same UCPR paramedic response times for 2024 as those which had been set for 2023. The Ontario Ministry of Health sets the target response time for a sudden cardiac arrest at six minutes, and at eight minutes for a Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) level one situation. The UCPR has set target response times for CTAS levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 at 16 minutes. The Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus’ (EOWC) recent Situational Review of paramedic services in the UCPR, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, Leeds and Grenville, Lanark, and Renfrew counties identified many factors influence paramedic services’ ability to meet their annual response times.
UCPR Director of Emergency Services Marc-André Périard said a new dispatching system, and increased funding for community paramedics will help strengthen services, but emphasized the UCPR is meeting its response times. Périard explained how the UCPR’s paramedic resources continue to be pulled into other municipalities, and there is also a shortage of human resources, but these complications will not change the response.
Chief Administrative Officer Stéphane Parisien said the UCPR was part of a joint delegation with Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones at the summer Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference where the issue of UCPR paramedics covering responses in neighbouring jurisdictions was addressed. Parisien is optimistic there will be a future meeting between the affected regional governments and Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe to discuss the situation.
“We’re trying to build something more formal,” Parisien said.
United Counties of Leeds and Grenville Warden Nancy Peckford (North Grenville) is leading the effort to arrange a meeting between the regional governments and Sutcliffe. Parisien is optimistic something will be arranged.
Parisien said the UCPR and other regional governments are not seeking financial compensation for the calls their paramedics respond to outside their boundaries, but instead want to ensure a sufficient number of paramedics and vehicles are available at all times to respond within the UCPR. He said it would be very difficult to recoup any costs associated with cross-boundary calls and that the UCPR no longer keeps a regular total of the expenses associated with such calls.
“The issue is basically with human resources,” he said.
Parisien said the City of Ottawa has no legal obligation to compensate the UCPR or any other neighbouring regional municipality for their response to ambulance calls in Ottawa.
Parisien said the UCPR tends to take most of the responsibility for calls in Ottawa than other jurisdictions which also border the large, single-tier city. He said that is because most of the UCPR’s urban population lives in the City of Clarence-Rockland and Russell Township which border Ottawa, which often means more UCPR paramedics are located in those municipalities to respond in Ottawa within a reasonable amount of time.
