Local hospitals receive funding to reduce ambulance offload delays

Waterloo Region – Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services and the region’s three hospitals are announcing receipt of funding from the Ministry of Health through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program. This funding for staff offload positions in emergency departments is intended to free up ambulances and paramedics to return to communities as soon as possible to provide more people with access to timely emergency care.

Cambridge Memorial Hospital, Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital will share $743,706 in funding that covers staffing 12 hours a day, seven days a week. This includes additional funding in the amount of $226,903 that will be divided among the three hospitals to expand coverage to 24 hours a day, seven days a week until March 31, 2023.

Applying for additional funding through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program is just one way Paramedic Services and local hospitals are working together to address the issue of offload delays.

Quotations:

“We are very pleased that the Ministry of Health is providing additional funding to Cambridge Memorial Hospital, Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital to support additional staffing hours through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program. Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services is committed to working closely with our hospital partners to ensure our paramedics are available for all residents in our community who call 911 because of a medical emergency.”  – John Riches, Chief of Paramedic Services

“Cambridge Memorial Hospital welcomes this investment for additional funding through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program. Reduced offload times ensures valuable paramedic resources are responding to the community’s needs and assures offloaded patients are safely monitored, while being assessed and triaged.” – Rita Sharratt, Director, Emergency & Mental Health Programs

“We welcome this funding which will help to ensure that patients receive the right care when and where they need it and supports our valuable EMS partners to be back out in the community providing life-saving care.” – Kate Robertson-Cain, VP Clinical Services & Chief Nursing Executive.

“The best care is the right care, and the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program is one of the ways that we are working together to provide patients with the care most appropriate to their needs while reducing offload time for paramedics. This further investment of additional funding in this program helps to ensure that our community has access to the care that they need, when they need it most.” – Jill Schitka, VP Patient Services & Chief Nursing Executive, St. Mary’s General Hospital

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