A new Halton Region Paramedic Services master plan is being introduced to tackle the growing demand for services, improve response times and maintain a crucial target for offloading at hospitals.
With paramedic calls expected to increase 4 to 6 per cent annually due to population growth — primarily in Milton — and higher utilization rates, the 10-year plan outlines strategies for expanding staffing and building new paramedic hubs.
By 2034, it's estimated an additional 1,400 hours of ambulance staffing per week and 32 non-paramedic full-time positions will be required to meet the demand.
The recommendation also calls for the services to move to a "hub and spoke" model, which entails building a new headquarters, potentially at Bronte in Oakville, and a new hub at Hornby in Halton Hills.
"The majority of crews would start their shift at those two hubs, and then be posted out dynamically to the locations in each municipality to make sure we've got a good spread of resources and we can get the best performance out of that system," said Andrew Greggan, a consultant with ORH, at the latest regional council meeting.
New smaller community/post stations — single-bay facilities with a reduced footprint — are also required in each municipality.
Several suitable land parcels have been identified for these stations in Milton (Britannia Road and Regional Road 25) and Halton Hills (Trafalgar Road and No. 10 Sideroad). While they won’t be staffed 24/7, vehicles will be deployed from central hubs to these posts as needed to improve coverage, Greggan explained.
Greggan said there was a general upward trend in demand last year, though slightly lower compared to 2022 on average.
"However, all of the years post pandemic were higher than in 2019," he said.
In 2023, the average response times for the most critical calls, or highest acuity patients, were within eight minutes in Oakville (6:44), Burlington (6:49) and Milton (6:56) — but longer for Halton Hills (8:37). Urban areas closer to stations typically performed better, while rural areas experienced slower times.
“One of those probably around the south of Georgetown, not receiving as good a response as nearer to the station given its proximity, and also in south east Burlington,” he said.
Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward asked for insights into the reasons behind this disparity and whether it was simply a matter of station proximity.
Greggan pointed out that the primary cause for the longer response times in these rural regions is the lack of paramedic stations. He elaborated that travel times, coupled with limited resources, exacerbate the issue.
"As resources are depleted, vehicles are redeployed to cover the greatest geographical area with the fewest number of vehicles," he said.
It’s not uncommon for only four or five ambulances to be available throughout the entire region at times, highlighting the challenges faced in providing timely emergency services in less populated areas, he added.
With this plan, "we will see improvements in response times to all areas of the region."
A longstanding concern for council is hospital offload delay times, which Oakville Mayor Rob Burton noted have increased by 10 minutes since 2019, now averaging around 40 minutes. He sought confirmation that the proposed resource requirements have been projected with the expectation that offload delays would remain at this level.
Greg Sage, chief of Halton Region Paramedic Services, clarified that the resource requirements in the plan are based on offload delay remaining at 40 minutes.
"I've been before this council many times over a number of years, our times were much, much worse than 40 minutes probably about five or six years ago," Sage said.
While 40 minutes seems like a substantial number, "we look at comparators around the province — we're doing very, very well there."
Currently, Halton Paramedic Services operates 14 ambulances around the clock and an additional 11 ambulances during 12-hours shifts. During peak hours from 2 to 6 p.m., there are 25 ambulances on duty. The division also has four paramedic emergency response units, each staffed by a single paramedic, available 12/7.