'It's getting worse': Town of Essex urgently calls on province to help fix growing 'code black' crisis

Essex town council is appealing to the province to take action to “resolve the gaps in our healthcare” after off-load delays put Windsor-Essex in a code black situation with no ambulances available.

After another Code Black was declared last Monday, Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy planned to bring an emergency motion to council to petition Ontario government representatives to do something about the delays.

Code blacks were declared again this past weekend on both Friday and Saturday.

“Windsor and Essex County residents ought to have confidence that when they dial 911 it will elicit a prompt ambulance response for emergency situations,” Bondy said in her motion.

“Local health care providers are engaging various initiatives such as a paramedic offload program, offload to the waiting room for assessment and triage of less severe medical matters, diversion to another hospital for low acuity cases, and EWEMS' paramedic patient navigator to monitor and manage dispatch. Nevertheless, these initiatives alone have been unable to curb the escalation of code red and code black frequency, signifying few or no ambulances available for emergencies.”

A code black means no Essex-Windsor EMS ambulances are available anywhere in the city or county, while a code red means there are only two ambulances available.

According to Bondy, in 2021 Windsor-Essex experienced a cumulative 3,253 minutes in code red and 791 in code black. In 2022, that jumped to 8,086 in code red and 2,257 in code black. By March 2023, just three months into the year, the community clocked 864 minutes in code red plus another 2,257 in code black.

“We implore the authorities to apply an immediate and comprehensive review of our hospital offload delays and staffing crisis in our front line,” Bondy said. “Ambulance offload processes and hospital volumes are merely two contributing factors, if nothing tangible is done, local families risk experiencing catastrophic consequences.”

Bondy noted in October 2022, former County of Essex Warden Gary McNamara declared an emergency on ambulance availability linked to hospital admission delays. Now, the emergency situation still holds with no decrease in code reds and blacks.

The Town of Essex is requesting the province recognize the strain facing local emergency response and conduct a review of projected population growth and aging in the area and increase healthcare capacity to match future and present needs.  

Mayor Bondy did have a conversation with Windsor-Tecumseh Conservative MPP Andrew Dowie last Friday, where he detailed the many efforts the province has made in recent years to keep ambulances on the road.

“Our government is continuing to collaborate with Ontario Health, local paramedic services, hospital leadership, and other sector partners on short and long-term strategies that increase ambulance availability and reduce ambulance offload time,” said Dowie in a statement to CTV News.

He listed the government’s four-part strategy to tackle ambulance offload time issues, including:

• - returning ambulances to communities faster;
• - providing timely and appropriate care in the community;
• - facilitating non-ambulance transportation for stable patients; and
• - increasing health care worker capacity.

“All of this with the goal of improving patient flow in hospital, reducing ambulance offload time, and avoiding unnecessary trips to emergency departments,” said Dowie.

He says the province’s most recent budget includes $51 million over three years to support the dedicated offload nurses program, as well as expanding the 9-1-1 models of care to empower paramedics to provide timely care in the community.

 

Health Minister Sylvia Jones, Essex MPP Anthony Leardi and Dowie met with past Warden Gary McNamara and Essex-Windsor EMS Chief Krauter in October 2022, “and had a productive discussion on how to work together to address the matters raised in the emergency declaration previously declared by Essex County,” said Dowie.

Dowie adds the province funds 50 per cent of the costs for land ambulance operations for Essex-Windsor EMS and 12 new positions established by the county are supported by the grant as well.

The government also announced $222,588 in funding for Windsor Regional Hospital to support more on-call funding for doctors working after hours.

“Through the Community Commitment Program for Nurses (CCPN) launched in June 2022, Windsor Regional Hospital was approved to offer qualified nursing staff $25,000 to sign up and serve at least two years at the hospital,” said Dowie. “Over 10 months, Windsor Regional Hospital has signed up over 200 nurses under the program and has had funding approved for an additional 100 slots.”

“Be assured that I welcome all opportunities to collaborate with our health care partners,” said Dowie. “I don't see my role as your MPP being someone who relies on others to figure it out.”