Ambulance response times improve in early months of Winnipeg's new 911 dispatch system
But firefighters' union says it hasn't seen evidence of improvement on call volume under new system
Ambulances are getting to life-threatening emergencies faster since the launch of a five-priority dispatch system around two months ago, according to the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service.
The city started using the new way of triaging medical calls made to 911 on April 23, replacing an old two-priority system.
The new approach "makes sense for our system. It actually makes more sense for the patients, too," said Ryan Sneath, the fire-paramedic service's deputy chief of paramedic operations and training.
It's aimed at making sure first responders are available for the most critical cases, while reducing how often emergency vehicles have to race through traffic with lights and sirens.
The move comes with call volumes rising in Winnipeg for both fire and medical-related incidents.
Calls to 911 are now triaged into five different categories, with both fire and paramedic crews going to Priority 1 calls with lights and sirens.
The lower the priority, the less urgent the response.
Sneath said early numbers show ambulances are getting to life-threatening calls faster.
"That time has improved by about two minutes on average," said Sneath.
Prior to the change, ambulances were responding to life-threatening calls in about 16 minutes on average, 90 per cent of the time, he said. That number is down to 14 minutes under the new system.
"Our goal is to see improvements in that," said Sneath.
As part of Winnipeg's integrated response model, trucks with a firefighter-paramedic on board are often first to respond within the national standard of under nine minutes.
Sneath said that remains unchanged under the new dispatch system.
5-scale system
Under the new system, a Priority 1 call is the most time sensitive and yields the biggest response.
Urgent medical calls, such as broken bones or bleeding, are considered Priority 2. Both fire and paramedic units will respond, but won't use lights and sirens.
A Priority 3 is a medical call that requires transportation. In those cases, paramedics will respond in an ambulance without using lights and sirens.
Priority 4 calls could be something like a fall where someone can't get up, and only a fire crew will respond, without using lights and sirens.
Priority 5 calls are the least urgent, and see community paramedics respond to low-acuity medical needs that people may be able to get help for through a family doctor or a walk-in clinic.
Sneath acknowledged people with less serious medical problems may have to wait longer for an ambulance under that system, depending on what other emergencies are happening when they call.
"It's about assigning our resources to the most important calls at the time," Sneath said. "So when resources are available, we'll dispatch them out to those incidents."
'Responding to more calls than ever': union
Ryan Woiden, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union Local 911, which represents paramedics, said he's concerned about the response to those lower-priority calls.
"If your call is not a high priority, you will wait in a virtual queue, a virtual waiting room," Woiden said. "And we will get to you when we have an ambulance to get to you."
But he said when crews arrive, paramedics often find themselves having to explain the delayed response.
"Here we're thinking we're going to be helping somebody, and in the first five minutes we're hearing how disappointed and how upset someone is that it's taken that long."
Nick Kasper, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, said the growing number of calls reflects the challenges first responders are facing across the city.
"The challenges being faced by firefighters, firefighter-paramedics and paramedics on the ambulances are not new," the union president said.
"This is a story as old as time, and it's one that's simply compounding as our population grows and our call volume increases."
He said he's voiced concerns to the fire-paramedic service and directly to Mayor Scott Gillingham that the higher demand is leading to delayed responses to emergencies and medical transports.
So far, the union hasn't seen evidence of improvement on call volume under the new dispatch system, he said.
"What I'm hearing from crews is exactly the opposite," Kasper said. "Their experience in the stations, on the ground, is that they're responding to more calls than ever."
The fire-paramedic service has committed to a review of the new dispatch system after six months.
Gillingham said the city has invested in new firefighting equipment and it's up to the department to allocate resources as needed.
The mayor pointed to the new dispatch system as one way fire-paramedic service Chief Christian Schmidt is trying to make sure fire trucks don't go where they're not needed.
"I know that he's been using data to determine where his vehicles go and where his equipment goes," Gillingham said.
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