A Halifax woman is sharing a similar story a week after a senior couple went public with their experience waiting hours for an ambulance at Point Pleasant Park.
On October 12, Amy Klinger suffered a painful fall while attempting to squeeze in a quick climb at Seven Bays Bouldering on Gottingen Street before heading to work.
Klinger claimed that she severely broke her ankle when she slipped. The hospital was only minutes away, but despite the staff calling 911 right away, help still hadn’t arrived after two hours.
Even moving me that very small distance was unbearably uncomfortable, Klinger added. “We managed to get me from the floor to a bench and that was, it was not good.”
She started to worry if assistance was on the way.
All you can think about, according to Klinger, is how much you want them to succeed. “It really adds a layer to it when you’re in that kind of pain, in that kind of a situation, and there’s that kind of uncertainty.
”
A further hour or so passed before an ambulance arrived on the site. It had been a busy day with more important calls than usual, Klinger was informed.
After learning about a comparable incident that occurred at Point Pleasant Park last month, Klinger felt compelled to share her story.
On October 30, Donna McInnis and her husband Kevin were strolling next to a retaining wall to get a glimpse of a sizable aircraft carrier berthed in Halifax Harbour when Kevin slipped and hurt his hip.
Given that the park is located less than four kilometres from the QEII emergency department, Donna reported that it took the ambulance two and a half hours to arrive.
The facility manager with Seven Bays said in a statement to Global News that staff members were shocked by the length of Klinger’s wait.
“Obviously, this speaks to the overwhelming pressure on our first responders,” Shahin Mohammadi said.
We were shocked by the unusually slow response time that day, and we hope that many of these more recent reports will spur some action to address the problem.
According to EHS, on that particular day, there were a lot of calls both locally and provincially, and hospitals had trouble offloading patients on time. Data posted by the Department of Health shows that week, EHS responded to more than 2,400 calls, with an average offload time of 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Cases like Klinger’s, according to the business manager of the union that represents paramedics in Nova Scotia, have a significant impact on employees.
According to Kevin McMullen, “Those situations are very difficult on our paramedics because our paramedics want to get there quickly.” They want to perform the tasks for which they have been trained, but regrettably when there is a delay, it affects their attitude.
Members are leaving the province for higher-paying jobs and better working conditions, according to McMullen.
In the interim, the Executive Director of Emergency Health Services reports that when a case is similar to Klinger’s, a review is conducted.
Charbel Daniel said, “We genuinely understand how stressful those situations are, and we take them very seriously. “We conduct a thorough quality review of the call itself whenever an instance like that occurs. ”
McMullen and Daniel add work is being done to help reduce strain on the system.
Both discuss ways to improve healthcare in the province, including the use of single paramedic response units for lower-risk calls and the addition of a doctor, registered nurse, and clinical support paramedic to the EHS 911 team.
Klinger asserted that more needs to be done to support paramedics and that her experience is not unusual.
“I just think we should be able to depend on our health-care system a little bit more. ”.
After a rock climbing accident, a Halifax woman waits for an ambulance for almost 3 hours.
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