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Emergency Response Times

Mariomike, is it normal for the service wait time in Ottawa during such staffing shortages to be over 2 hours and for ambulances to be dispatched from cities about 170km away? Or is this an abnormal occurence resulting from a greater than usual staffing shortage?

I just know what was reported,

For many years, Ottawa has struggled with having no ambulances free to send to a call, mainly because paramedics are tied up at hospital emergency rooms waiting to transfer patients to hospital staff.

It's not the exception, but the norm.
 
I wouldn't get hysterical over it. Sounds like it happens twice a day, every day, in Ottawa.

I know both Lanark and Renfrew have Paramedics routinely respond into Ottawa. Particularly from immediately adjacent communities like Almonte, Arnprior, CP etc.
 
I know both Lanark and Renfrew have Paramedics routinely respond into Ottawa. Particularly from immediately adjacent communities like Almonte, Arnprior, CP etc.

Sounds like "Level Zero" is routine in Ottawa, and has been for a long time.
 
No surprise.

The "Do more, with less" mentality.

As a rural resident just outside Ottawa, the former Township of West Carleton ( where I Live in Constance Bay), has two cruisers available at any given time, over a huge geographical area, average response time for Police and EMS is typically 20-25mins. Ironically, Fire, which is 100% volunteer usually has a greater response time, due to there being a number of stations at strategic points.

....still paying lots of $$ to the City of Ottawa tax levy however.
 
22 mins for a pri one response is nuts. Should be half that. And that’s taking into account the phone call. There may be a difference in how they score the time but NYPD is between 8 and 10. Big difference organizationally- not really comparable beyond the fact they are huge cities but Toronto needs to reorganize itself. 22 mins to me means you may as well take the lights off the cars.

As an aside the new TPS uniforms look comfortable but they look awful.
 
No surprise.

The "Do more, with less" mentality.

As a rural resident just outside Ottawa, the former Township of West Carleton ( where I Live in Constance Bay), has two cruisers available at any given time, over a huge geographical area, average response time for Police and EMS is typically 20-25mins. Ironically, Fire, which is 100% volunteer usually has a greater response time, due to there being a number of stations at strategic points.

....still paying lots of $$ to the City of Ottawa tax levy however.

Hah, no it doesn’t. West Division may have two cars assigned to your sector, meaning they’ll drift back that way if nothing priority is going on, but don’t think for a second they’re sitting there free to cover Constance Bay and Dunrobin if there’s something serious in Kanata or Stittsville that needs units. I would bet that most of the time there are no cars at all close to you. Most of the time there aren’t serious calls out there, so that’s where deployments get risk managed.
 
Hah, no it doesn’t. West Division may have two cars assigned to your sector, meaning they’ll drift back that way if nothing priority is going on, but don’t think for a second they’re sitting there free to cover Constance Bay and Dunrobin if there’s something serious in Kanata or Stittsville that needs units. I would bet that most of the time there are no cars at all close to you. Most of the time there aren’t serious calls out there, so that’s where deployments get risk managed.
There was a provincial capital west of Ontario that had two police officers on for the whole city for an hour every Sunday morning and Monday morning 4-5am back in 2009-2010. Those were awkward calls lol
 
Hah, no it doesn’t. West Division may have two cars assigned to your sector, meaning they’ll drift back that way if nothing priority is going on, but don’t think for a second they’re sitting there free to cover Constance Bay and Dunrobin if there’s something serious in Kanata or Stittsville that needs units. I would bet that most of the time there are no cars at all close to you. Most of the time there aren’t serious calls out there, so that’s where deployments get risk managed.
Yeah, no illusions on this end.
 
Toronto needs to reorganize itself. 22 mins to me means you may as well take the lights off the cars.

Regarding Response Times in Toronto.

From the City of Toronto Paramedic Service 2023 Operating Budget:

In 2022, Response Time at the 90th percentile was 14 minutes 11 seconds.

Mental health emergency calls increased by 86% since 2015.

Since 2015, a 153% increase in opiod OD's.

882% increase in WSIB costs 2013 - 2021.
 
I wonder what the cost per person, adjusted for todays values, the various emergency services cost, like- what did Toronto spend on EMS and police in 1983, adjusted, and then what do they spend today.

Just for comparison sake. I know that the medical side has seen dramatic increases in qualifications, pressure, and paperwork as well as professional skills upkeep. So have the police. I wonder if the money is keeping up with the creeping demand.

I suspect it doesn’t. I manage quite a bit of money- and the system predicted costs haven’t kept up with the increase in costs very well even in the last five years. So while there are modest increases to an astronomical amount of money- the power of the money is decreasing faster than those increases. So while it looks like a community is spending more- the services ability to generate return is diminished slightly. Year after year.

So less officers have less time and more commitments and the modest money increases ( to what is a healthy portion of a communities budget) actually continually fund a slight deficit.
 
That’s less than a quarter of the square mileage of the city of Ottawa. Absolutely massive rural catchment.
When I joined fire out here, I was shown a map basically showing 5 other Canadian municipalities within Ottawas borders.
 
That's one way to deal with car thieves.

Matt Gurney: The police have given up. They've surrendered

“To prevent the possibility of being attacked in your home, leave your fobs by your front door. Because they’re breaking into your homes to steal your car. They don’t want anything else. A lot of them that [the police] are arresting have guns on them. And they’re not toy guns. They’re real guns. They’re loaded.”
 
That's why I just leave mine running in the driveway...protects my family with the bonus of driving my climate warrior neighbours crazy!

Bill Hader Omg GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
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