 Woman dies after waiting 3 hours for ambulance An 87-year-old Toronto woman died in December after waiting three hours with abdominal pain for an ambulance that was delayed due to limited resources, a CBC investigation reveals.Commentsview comments in forum Page 1 You need to be a member of CKA and be logged into the site, to comment on news. |
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Nice gesture, but by then it was much too late.
Thanks for coming out.
Nice gesture, but by then it was much too late.
Thanks for coming out.
Too true.
It seems to be a pretty common thing, people in severe or critical condition/pain having to wait in excess of an hour or more just to get help.
That's crazy.
That's sad.. is it really because they absolutely couldn't get to her right away?
It seems to be a pretty common thing, people in severe or critical condition/pain having to wait in excess of an hour or more just to get help.
That's not common around here. In Sacramento the city uses both fire department ambulances and privately owned ambulances and response times inside the city are typically under five minutes. In general, you can even get a helicopter ambulance inside of ten minutes.
Of course, all of that changes next year when Obamacare comes into effect with all of its restrictions on 'excess capacity'.
The city is planning on selling its ambulances to private industry in hopes of keeping up current levels of service. The air ambulances, however, are expecting to be reduced significantly. We currently have twelve such air ambulances in the region and by 2015 that number will be reduced to one per qualifying hospital - which means we'll have three where right now we have twelve.
Bottom line is people are going to die because of this.
"You can't keep operating at 10- to 12-year-old staffing levels with population growth and an aging population and not expect problems," Merriman told CBC News.
Toronto EMS officials also tried to warn the city in December 2011. Facing a hiring freeze for the following year, then Deputy Chief John Lock sent a report to the budget committee stating:
"By December 2012, it is expected Toronto EMS will have 36 vacant paramedic positions which will require EMS to reduce the available ambulances by an equivalent of 6.5 ambulances on a 24-hour period. The decreased vehicle count will reduce the availability of ambulances for emergency calls."
EMS was also approved for 50 hires in January of this year. The positions will take months to fill, and Toronto EMS told CBC News even that is not enough to meet demand.
Sounds more like a cutback issue due to politicians diverting funding elsewhere. Gee, ain't austerity grand?
Sounds more like a cutback issue due to politicians diverting funding elsewhere. Gee, ain't austerity grand?
The question has been posed down here and perhaps should be posed in Toronto too:
Why should the taxpayers subsidize something that private businesses are willing to do both at no cost to the taxpayer and at a lower cost to the health care providers?
"You can't keep operating at 10- to 12-year-old staffing levels with population growth and an aging population and not expect problems," Merriman told CBC News.
Toronto EMS officials also tried to warn the city in December 2011. Facing a hiring freeze for the following year, then Deputy Chief John Lock sent a report to the budget committee stating:
"By December 2012, it is expected Toronto EMS will have 36 vacant paramedic positions which will require EMS to reduce the available ambulances by an equivalent of 6.5 ambulances on a 24-hour period. The decreased vehicle count will reduce the availability of ambulances for emergency calls."
EMS was also approved for 50 hires in January of this year. The positions will take months to fill, and Toronto EMS told CBC News even that is not enough to meet demand.
Sounds more like a cutback issue due to politicians diverting funding elsewhere. Gee, ain't austerity grand?
Nope.
Same old song and dance for the Union looking to get more members.
Better yet, bring in a private insurance plan where everyone has to buy their own ambulance insurance in order to make sure an ambulance shows up when needed. A nice amount of, say, $2000 per year ($5000 per year for all those pesky seniors who make more calls than anyone else) to start shouldn't be too difficult for anyone to absorb, should it? Anyone who can't afford it are just SOL and too bloody bad for them. Not my problem in the slightest if they even make to the hospital to begin with and it would actually be better if none of them did anyway because it would keep costs down. Seriously, where's my interest in providing ambulance service to others out of my tax dollars? What have any of those freeloading seniors ever done for me?
Yours truly,
Ayn Rand