Paramedic Services

Responsibilities

Seeing to the operational and strategic planning of the emergency medical services.
Offering advanced primary care pre-hospital emergency services.
Insuring quality and supporting the delivery of services according to standards and arrangements under the Ambulance Act and Regulations on emergency medical services.
Insuring assessment, medical treatment and patient transportation by ambulance to the hospital and/or any other health care institution.
Insuring professional development of paramedics.
Ensuring follow up on requests for access to patient records.

Financing

The Province transferred the financial and operational responsibility of the land ambulance services to the United Counties of Prescott and Russell on January 1st, 2001. The cost of the service is equally shared between the provincial and the regional governments.

Call Management

Ambulances are deployed out of height stations and posts that employs more than 120 employees.

How are calls distributed?

The call to 9-1-1 is routed towards our Central Ambulance Communication Center (CACC) which is located in Ottawa and is managed by the City of Ottawa, with an agreement overseen by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The dispatcher will ask you several pertinent questions to establish the priority of your call. An ambulance will be dispatched to the scene of the emergency while you are in communication with the dispatcher. It is important to stay in communication with the dispatcher and listen carefully to the instructions that he will give you.

Workforce breakdown

Our ambulance attendants are at work 24 hours a day to ensure a reasonable response time, even with the major area of the territory to cover. Did you ever notice ambulances parked in some random place? These strategic spots have been set in order to be able to cover a bigger territory when other ambulances are busy on the scene of an emergency and are not available for new calls.

Ambulances are deployed out of four stations. These stations are in Embrun, Hawkesbury, Plantagenet, and Rockland. We also have five waiting stations located in Alfred, Bourget, Casselman, Vankleek Hill, and St-Isidore.

Our emergency vehicle fleet consists of several different types of vehicle and each has a different function.

Ambulance

This vehicle is used to transport patients during a medical emergency and / or inter-hospital emergency transfer.

Emergency Response Unit

This vehicle is used for daily supervision operations. The Superintendent visit teams in stations, give assistance to teams on emergency call and ensures the proper functioning of the service in the region. In addition, he will take charge of the scene if the situation requires it.

Emergency Support Unit

This vehicle is used as a resupply vehicle as well as for operations support. In addition, this vehicle can be used at community activity.

Communication Unit

This vehicle is designed to be the communications center that can accommodate all emergency services and having the ability to be moved to the emergency scene. For example, the ice storm in 1998. The vehicle is also used as command post for special events and group gatherings. It should be noted that this vehicle is available to all emergency services of Prescott and Russell.

Ontario Ambulance Act Regulation 257/00 requires ambulance service delivery agents to adopt municipally-developed response time plans for cardiac arrest patients and CTAS 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 patients receiving emergency responses.

Our paramedics respond to medical calls and inter-hospital transfers.

Emergency medical call

Code 1 - Non-emergency transportation (return or transfer)
Code 2 - Scheduled transportation
Code 3 - Urgent, but the patient's life is not compromised
Code 4 - Critical, the patient's life could be compromised
Code 8 - Standby

Inter-hospital transfers

Ontario Regulation 257/00 requires service delivery agents to adopt a Response Time Performance Plan for cardiac arrest and response under the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) for emergency departments.

The Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS) is a five-level triage scale with the highest severity level 1 (resuscitation) and the lowest severity levels 5 (non-urgent) used to assign a level of acuity to patients and more accurately define the patient’s need for care primarily based on the optimal time to medical intervention.

Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale (CTAS):

CTAS Level 1: CTAS level assigned for resuscitation.
CTAS Level 2: CTAS level assigned for emergent.
CTAS Level 3: CTAS level assigned for urgent.
CTAS Level 4: CTAS level assigned for less urgent.
CTAS Level 5: CTAS level assigned for non-urgent.

The 2015 Land Ambulance Response Time Performance Plan as been approved by the Council as outlined below:

Type of Call: Arrêt cardiaque

Defibrillator Response of Six (6) minutes as set by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care
Target Percentage of time achieved is of 30%

Type of Call: Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale 1 (immediately life-threatening)

Paramedic Response of Eight (8) minutes as set by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care
Target Percentage of time achieved is of 45%

Type of Call: Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale 2

Paramedic Response of 15 minutes as set by the County
Target Percentage of time achieved is of 90%

Type of Call: Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale 3

Paramedic Response of 15 minutes as set by the County
Target Percentage of time achieved is of 90%

Type of Call: Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale 4

Paramedic Response of 15 minutes as set by the County
Target Percentage of time achieved is of 90%

Type of Call: Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale 5

Paramedic Response of 15 minutes as set by the County
Target Percentage of time achieved is of 90%

The Type of Provider and Response Time Target is equivalent to the time the paramedic was notified of call and the time to arrive on site.

Other Services

Pre-hospital emergency services

Definition

Our goal is to provide assistance within the best possible time frame, provide necessary care and offer access to the nearest appropriate hospital, according to the patient’s condition and accommodation capacity of the institutions.

In order to improve the quality of our service to the patients, our land ambulance services offer two levels of service: primary care paramedic and advanced care paramedic.

Our paramedics can provide authorized medical procedures in order to assure rapid treatment to a person in distress.

Advanced care pre-hospital emergency services are essential in a rural area like Prescott and Russell where the travel distance to get to a hospital is usually further than in an urban setting. Thus, in order to offer our citizens with the best possible service in a set response time, paramedics of Prescott and Russell provide advanced care that would normally only be offered in the emergency room.

Delegate medical acts

Paramedics practice delegated medical acts, which means that under the direction of a physician designated by our base hospital, they can provide medical care in a pre-hospital environment within established protocols. For example: use of defibrillator, intubation, starting an intravenous line, administering medications, etc.

Become a paramedic

If the paramedic profession interests you, please check with the colleges and universities in your area for information on courses and requirements.