Sault Area Hospital continues to experience challenges in its Emergency Department, at times leading to overcrowding and delays for paramedics trying to deliver patients by ambulance.
Tuesday was an especially difficult day for paramedics, said Mike Nadeau, CEO of District of Sault Ste Marie Social Services Administration Board, which oversees Sault Ste. Marie Paramedic Services.
Offload delays occur when paramedics arrive at the hospital with a patient, but hospital staff are unable to accept the patient, due to staffing, lack of space or other issues.
In an analysis of offload delays in 2021, the Sault Ste. Marie Paramedic Services found crews spent an average of 23.53 minutes from the time they arrived at the hospital until the staff there could assume care and responsibility for the patient.
“The day you are speaking about, it was more acute than typical. We did experience more offload delays than our average. It was a really challenging day for the service,” said Nadeau on Wednesday.
The service brought in additional crews on Tuesday to try and alleviate some pressure caused by the offload delays.
“Our staff were amazing to be able to respond coming in on short notice, but we did end up having to upstaff,” said Nadeau.
Sault Area Hospital spokesperson Brandy Sharp Young told SooToday the hospital continues to experience challenging times in its Emergency Department, but notes its situation is similar to other hospitals across the province.
“We have high patient volumes and high acuity in the Emergency Department, which contributes to ambulance offload delays,” she said.
A high level of COVID-19 and respiratory illnesses in the community, COVID-19 outbreaks within SAH, as well as a high number of alternate level of care patients in the hospital has routinely pushed its occupancy rate over 100 per cent, said Sharp Young.
”These challenges are predicted to continue throughout the winter months as we continue to see high rates of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses in our community,” she said.
Nadeau and Sharp Young both told SooToday their organizations are working together to find solutions.
“Safe care for our patients is our priority, and we are committed to working collaboratively with Sault Ste. Marie Paramedic Services and other health care partner,” said Sharp Young.
“We meet regularly and we are meeting again next week,” said Nadeau. ”We are trying to solve it, but there are staffing challenges across the board, there’s COVID — it’s just really a tough time in the health care services right now.”