REGINA - The Opposition New Democrats resumed their attack on the government Monday, this time focusing on ambulance response in the province.
Opposition Leader Carla Beck, Health Critic Vicki Mowat and Rural and Remote Health Critic Matt Love took turns roasting the government in Question Period over statistics on ambulance response provided in documents they obtained by a freedom of information request.
According to the documents which were released to the media, the SHA did not have an ambulance available to respond to 216 calls during the first six weeks of 2023, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 13.
The documents indicate 49 of those incidents were in Regina urban metro area. 24 were in Buffalo Narrows, 17 were in Meadow Lake and nine were in Indian Head Zone One. The remaining counts were for 36 other communities in rural areas and smaller centres.
The NDP say the true number of instances where ambulances were unavailable is likely higher, as their FOI request did not take into account communities serviced by private ambulance like Saskatoon.
The Opposition MLAs wasted no time blasting the Sask Party government for not addressing the issue with enough money in the recent budget. The following exchange between Beck and Health Minister Paul Merriman was recorded in Hansard.
Ms. Beck — “Last month we raised the concerns of Sharon Chartier’s experience, here in the Assembly. Members will remember that Sharon waited for more than an hour when she thought that she was having a heart attack. Mr. Speaker, she waited because no ambulance was available. Does the Premier believe that when a Saskatchewan person picks up the phone, needing an ambulance, that one should be available without delay?”
Hon. Mr. Merriman: — “Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As I’ve explained in the media, there are some challenging times with our ambulance services. But we’ve been able to reduce our ambulance offload delays by 40 per cent since December. We’ve also been able to reduce the overall stay within our whole health care system by one day, Mr. Speaker. That’s a significant amount. We are working with local EMS [emergency medical services], rural EMS, to make sure that they have the proper resources, Mr. Speaker.”
There was an extensive back and forth between Saskatoon Eastview MLA Love and Minister of Rural and Remote Health Everett Hindley. In his questions, Love targeted ridings held by Sask Party cabinet ministers.
Mr. Love: — “…Now Meadow Lake even has a Sask Party MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly], a senior cabinet minister who seems to be calling all the shots over there. What does he say to the 17 people that he represents who called for an ambulance but none were available?”
Hon. Mr. Hindley: — “Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 2023-24 budget includes an increase of over $8.8 million in annual funding to enhance emergency medical services right across the province, Mr. Speaker, building upon last year’s investment into this very critical area for health care across rural and remote Saskatchewan.
Mr. Speaker, the funding in this year’s budget includes three and a half million dollars to support an additional 33 FTEs in 27 communities across this province, both SHA and contracted ambulance services…”
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Mr. Love: — “… Let’s look at the Southeast, Mr. Speaker: Radville, six calls, no ambulance; Whitewood, five calls, no ambulance; Lampman, four calls, no ambulance; Oxbow and Carnduff, three calls each, no ambulance; Redvers, Estevan, Kipling, two calls each, no ambulance.
What does the minister say to the 27 people in the Southeast who, in just six weeks, had no access to an ambulance because of his government’s failure to deliver?”
Hon. Mr. Hindley: — “…Now they want to run through a list of services, Mr. Speaker. Communities like Redvers have filled all their vacant positions; Rosetown filling positions; communities like Beechy, Frontier, Naicam, and Imperial all stabilizing their service delivery; a number of other communities where investments have been made.
There’s a list of 27 communities that will benefit from the investments in this year’s budget, Mr. Speaker. We can run through that list if the member opposite would like us to do that. Communities like Biggar, Carnduff, Cupar, Cut Knife, Eston, Fillmore, Hudson Bay, Kamsack, Kindersley — that’s just the first column, Mr. Speaker…”
Mr. Love: — “…Let’s turn our attention to west central Saskatchewan. Kindersley was short ambulances seven times; Maidstone, six times; the good people of Wilkie and Cut Knife, four times each; Unity, three times; Biggar, Eston, Kerrobert, two times each.”
Hon. Mr. Hindley: — “… I guess the member opposite wasn’t listening when I went through the list the first time because Kindersley was one of the communities on that list that’s going to be benefiting from the expanded, enhanced EMS stabilization dollars that are in this year’s budget, which those members opposite voted against last week, Mr. Speaker.”
In speaking to reporters about the numbers Hindley acknowledged the 216 instances where ambulances were unavailable was “not acceptable.” He said their target was to not have any missed calls, and that everyone calling for an ambulance have that service available to them.
”We are trying to act as quickly as we can, knowing of course that some of this doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re doing everything we can to try to support ground EMS operators across this province, whether they are the SHA ambulance providers or the contracted providers,” said Hindley.
He pointed to establishment of stabilization dollars to fund more positions, an expansion of training seat capacity including adding 100 more for primary care paramedics.
As for what caused the issues recently, Hindley said in some areas it was due to staffing challenges. In the case of rural ambulances, they were providing rural stabilization funding of more permanent full time positions across Saskatchewan.
“We are seeing some success in that. I know in the last year’s allocation of funding I think roughly 3/4 of those positions have been filled. Of course it can’t happen overnight, although we’d like to see that happen.”
Opposition critic Mowat pointed out a key driver of the issues was understaffing, but she also pointed to the situation in emergency rooms. She pointed out because paramedics were at a hospital waiting to offload a patient at an emergency room, those ambalances would be unavailable.
“People call emergency rooms the canary in the coal mine they show us where there are problems in our healthcare system,” said Mowat. She wanted to see the government accept Tracy Zambory and the SUN union's demand to set up a nursing task force to examine the issue.
As for the governments’ investments to try and address the issues, Mowat said the numbers show “that we need full-scale ambulance reform in this province, that these actions are only band-aid solutions, and that there is so much needed to help, because when people call for an ambulance in this province they should expect that one is going to show up.”
