Ambulance wait times at hospitals rise to 78 minutes: Manitoba PCs

WINNIPEG – The average time paramedics wait with patients at hospitals grew to 78 minutes in 2014, the Manitoba PC Party says.

Winnipeg city council’s protection and community services committee will receive a report on emergency room ambulance wait times Friday as the issue remains a problem despite efforts to deal with it.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority paid the city $124,000 in offload delay penalties in November, lifting the total paid in the first 11 months of November to more than $1.4 million. The WRHA pays penalties when paramedics wait at hospitals with patients for more than an hour. Paramedics can’t leave their patients until they’re in the care of hospital staff.

“The NDP has been promising on this improvement on this issue and has failed to deliver. Not only is there no improvement, but it is getting progressively worse,” PC health critic Myrna Driedger said in a news release.

The average wait time of 78 minutes was up from 75 minutes in 2013, 74 minutes in 2012 and 66 minutes in 2011, the Conservative news release said.

The report to the protection and community services committee says the city is currently negotiating to extend the agreement with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority under which the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service provides emergency medical response, inter-facility transport and community paramedicine.

Among those items being discussed are increasing the amount the health authority pays for time paramedics spend waiting in emergency rooms and creating a  mechanism to allow the mobilization of ambulances at emergency departments where there are significant offload delays.

They’re also working on systemic causes of delays, such as making sure patients suffering less serious complaints are sent to less busy emergency departments and possibly allowing some patients to wait at home until emergency room space is available.

The city report shows Health Sciences Centre delays are worst, with that emergency room accounting for almost one-third of the delay charges in the first 11 months of 2014. Health Sciences Centre was invoiced for almost 45 per cent of the delays in November.

It also shows that on average, there is no ambulance available in the city for 3.71 minutes every day.