'Stretched so thin': Sask. paramedic sheds light on current EMS pressures

A paramedic who has worked in the Regina region for several years is sharing some firsthand experience to paint a picture of the pressures EMTs are facing.

CTV News has granted anonymity to the paramedic to avoid potential professional repercussions. EMS services in Regina are operated by the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).

The paramedic said the current pressure felt in the industry is the worst it’s ever been.

Before the pandemic, they said crews were able to work with hospital staff to get patients into beds quickly when ambulances were in high demand.

“That slowly changed,” they said.

“There’s a turnover among hospital workers too, so the friendly faces became fewer and fewer. The whole system of being able to Band-Aid fix it just came to an end. We’re no longer able to fix it on our own and nothing seems to be getting fixed by upper management.”

The paramedic said it feels like their concerns are falling on deaf ears.

“There needs to be a change,” they said.

“If you were to take away the traumas that we see from the calls we do, just the work environment right now is enough to put someone on stress leave or make it that much harder to come to work.”

At this point, the paramedic said it’s considered a “lucky day” when they have time to eat lunch.

“It’s getting more and more difficult to come in and try to keep that positive mindset,” they explained.

“When you’re at hour nine in your shift, you haven’t eaten, you’re feeling fatigued, unfortunately it does kind of boil over.”

The SHA has said retention is one of the goals it’s focusing on as it tries to improve the paramedic situation in the province.

The paramedic who spoke to CTV News said current wages and the work environment don’t make the job attractive for new employees when there are other options.

“We’ve been told that the Regina Police Service gets to log off for their lunch break. They can do a workout, they can do whatever, they turn their radio off. When we get our lunch breaks, we’re still expected to respond if we get called out,” they said.

“I want a career that’s healthy and happy, not overworked and low morale.”

NO AMBULANCES AVAILABLE

The paramedic said it’s becoming more common for no ambulances to be available to respond to calls in the city.

Statistics obtained by CTV News from the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) through a freedom of information request show there were 206 times from May to October 2022 when no ambulance was able to respond. In October alone, there were 71 occasions.

“The radio code for it is ‘systems alert’ which means there’s no Regina ambulances available to respond,” the paramedic said.

At the beginning of the paramedic’s career, they said a systems alert would happen maybe once or twice during a 12 hour shift.

“It gradually increased and increased,” they said. “It’s so often that not to be called systems alert is more shocking than to be on systems alert.”

When no ambulances are available to immediately respond to a call, the SHA said the next closest, available unit will be dispatched. The paramedic who spoke with CTV News said sometimes, that means a unit from a rural municipality.

“That opens up a whole other issue because if we’re using rural ambulances, then those rural ambulances aren’t there for people in the rural area,” they said.

OFFLOAD DELAYS

As ambulance teams offload patients into hospitals, the paramedic who spoke with CTV News said triage nurses identify which patients to be prioritized.

“If we have a patient who came in with us by ambulance who’s triaged to a lower priority, we get offloaded and they stay on our stretcher in the hallway,” they said.

Sometimes, they said there are more than seven patients at a time with only two paramedics to care for them.

“That’s a pretty high ratio for patient to practitioner,” they said.

Years ago, the paramedic said it was considered an “offload delay” when it took 30 minutes or more to get a patient into a bed.

“Before, three or four hours was like ‘oh my goodness, you waited that long? That’s unbelievable.’ But now that’s happening and more times than not it’s a minimum of two hours,” they said.

“It’s becoming so frequent that it’s almost becoming accepted among crews.”

The paramedic said they haven’t seen any new initiatives put in place when it comes to addressing offload delays.

“There were discussions that trickled down but as far as anything implemented, not at this point in time,” they said.

From time to time, the paramedic said they and their colleagues get called in to work at hospital when emergency departments are short staffed.

“But when it comes to paramedics getting additional help, the only people who can work on ambulances are paramedics. We can fill voids in other places of the health system, but we can’t call a nurse to ride ambulance,” they said.

“Paramedics are getting stretched so thin.”

FINDING A FIX

Carla Beck, the leader of the Saskatchewan NDP, calls the pressure current paramedics are facing emergent and critical.

“These are people that chose this career, they care deeply about it, they want to be able to provide this care to people,” Beck said.

“When they have to watch people that they know should be receiving care die in hallways because that care is not available, it makes it very, very difficult for them to be doing their job.”

Beck added she would like to see the health minister and other members of the Sask Party government take part in conversations with paramedics to hear their stories first hand.

“If they did, I would hope that they would understand that they need to act. They need to apply not only the funds to address the situation, but they need to be willing to look for the solutions that are so urgently needed.”

In a statement last week, the SHA said there is currently a shortage of paramedics not just in Saskatchewan, but across Canada.

“The Saskatchewan Health Authority is working with the Government of Saskatchewan to explore opportunities for additional recruitment and retention initiatives and increased training access for paramedics,” the statement said.

Health minister Paul Merriman said those conversations are continuing.

“We’re working to make sure that [paramedics’] time in the emergency room when they do drop off a patient, that they can turn that around pretty quick,” Merriman said.

“There are some vacant positions out there but we’re working with different colleges to make sure we fill them.”

Merriman said the province acknowledges the paramedic turnover rate specifically in urban centres and is working to overcome it.