Patients Dying in 'Hall of Shame'

http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/02/07/4831979-sun.html

The link leads to an interesting article on "off load delay". If you didn't know, that is when you have to sit with your patient on your stretcher, waiting for a bed in the emerg. Apparently the average time is around an hour, but frequently it can be 2-4 hours, and upwards of 10. That's right, 10 hours lying on an ambulance stretcher. Not good for the patient, the medics, or the citizens waiting for an ambulance because medics are sitting around the emerg, doing the hospital's job. Sometimes it's the hospital's fault, sometimes it is the system's fault. Lots of politics involved.

The article states that no patient died on an EMS stretcher or in the waiting room. Of course not because once they go into cardiac arrest they will be moved to a hospital bed, worked on and if they die, it's after they have been "admitted". So technically no one dies in the waiting room or on an ambulance stretcher.

Patients suffer due to off load delay. It is hard to quantify but in-hospital tests and treatments are delayed which has to negatively affect some patients. Response times in Toronto have climbed which delays arrival of the medics. Again in some cases this has to have a detrimental affect on the patient.

From a paramedic's view Etobicoke is one of the worst for off load delay.