Air ambulance FAIL!!!!

NEWS RELEASE

SAH EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIANS

************************* Health ministry refusing to pay for timely transfer of Sault Ste. Marie’s most critical patients

The group of SAH Emergency Room Physicians is demanding that the Ministry of Health (MOH) live up to its responsibility to provide timely access to health care for all of its citizens.

This includes providing timely evacuation of critically ill patients to specialty centres when local expertise is not available.

We want to ensure that the transfer of patients out of the Sault for lifesaving treatment is not delayed due to governmental funding issues.

It is the stuff of nightmares.

A loved one is injured so gravely that he cannot be looked after at the SAH, and needs to be emergently transported to a specialty centre.

The patient is stabilized in the emergency department and is ready to be airlifted to the care they need.

Only, the aircraft is not coming.

The sky is clear, the weather favourable, but the tarmac is eerily quiet.

When you ask why, the baffling and wholly unsatisfactory answer is this: bureaucratic red tape.

This scenario is sadly and perilously close to playing out in our city.

Transferring critical patients is tricky business.

Three things are required: an accepting doctor, an open bed at the accepting hospital, and an available transportation team.

Over the past year, SAH has worked very closely with the Ministry of Health to streamline and expedite transfer of critically ill patients who are in danger of losing life or limb.

Because of this hard work, it has become easier to secure emergency specialist care outside of our community.

Unfortunately, there is a catch.

Transportation wait times have been steadily climbing, not just in Sault Ste. Marie, but across the province.

The MOH has hired only one transportation company, ORNGE, that cannot meet the demand and is not willing to accept help from others to pick up the shortfalls.

Even worse for a border town, when a patient needs to be transported to the United States for treatment, the Ministry of Health has been refusing to pay for the cost of transportation.

The ministry’s position further delays transfer and is contrary to the values of public health care.

“For a government that has made wait times such a priority, it is unacceptable to ignore such a vulnerable group of patients,” says emergency room physician James Curran.

Evacuations of critically ill patients need to be done quickly and efficiently.

It is the ministry’s responsibility to organize and pay for these services.

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