> Last year, Toronto paramedics reported that in 2023 there were 1,200 occasions where no ambulances were available to respond to an emergency call. That was up from only 29 occasions in 2019.
> CUPE Local 416, the union representing 1,400 paramedics working in Toronto, has also reported high instances of burnout in recent years.
- Avg 90th Percentile response times have gone from 12 minutes in 2019 & 2020 to 14.5 mins in 2024 and almost 15 minutes as a 2025 target: (12.1, 12.1, 13.0, 14.2, 14.0, 14.5, 14.8)
- staffing is up more than 50% in that time, while number of patient transports is up just 10% during that same timeframe
- Page 4
- scary graphic - graph concerning Daily Hours with < 10% available ambulances
The snapshot, from Saturday, March 1 to Tuesday, March 4, shows paramedic response times in Toronto are wildly inconsistent even where people could be having heart attacks or strokes.
In those four days, the city’s ambulance service failed to respond to almost half of Delta calls within the standard response time of eight minutes and 59 seconds.
A Delta call is the fourth highest in severity in the service’s five level classification system — Echo patients are in the most life-threatening state while Alpha are in the least.
For all calls, paramedics try to be on scene in under nine minutes but on average that response time is met only 69% of the time.
Over the four-day period, Echo calls were responded to within the goal response time 100% of the time on only two days.
On March 1, several Echo calls — which could be for a child not breathing, for example — only hit the standard 66% of the time.
On March 4, Echo calls received in the afternoon were only responded to in less than nine minutes 33% of the time.
Worse, paramedics told the Sun, they routinely arrive at calls classified as less serious that turn into more serious calls.
Almost seven out of 10 people needing an ambulance for a Delta response, like chest pain, between 7 and 10 p.m. March 3 waited more than nine minutes.
Paramedic union chairman Glenn Fontaine says the documents are more evidence that residents are playing “Russian roulette” when they dial 911.
Fontaine said every time paramedics fail to get to a scene in less than nine minutes, lives are at risk.
“That’s the time you need medical intervention if you’re having a medical emergency,” Fontaine said. “These numbers should be 90% and years ago they were.”
“I hope this isn’t a trend we’re seeing but my fear is it is ... And this (March) is slow time, wait till we get into summer vacation.”
> Last year, Toronto paramedics reported that in 2023 there were 1,200 occasions where no ambulances were available to respond to an emergency call. That was up from only 29 occasions in 2019.
> CUPE Local 416, the union representing 1,400 paramedics working in Toronto, has also reported high instances of burnout in recent years.