Non-Emergency Work
The Algoma District has many people who are either admitted to or live in a healthcare facility. These people are often in need of healthcare procedures and/or consultations that regularly require them to travel to both Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, where the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has centralized many healthcare services, for example diagnostic testing, for the residents of Northeastern Ontario and the Algoma District. An ambulance should only be the method of choice for moving someone where:
- the situation is an emergency
- there is a need for a stretcher and the person is medically unstable and in need of an escort
- a medical professional has determined that an ambulance is the most appropriate option to transport the patient.
Alternatively patients can be moved by an accessible taxi, family members, a transportation service offered by a volunteer organization or a private medical transport service, where available.
Algoma District Paramedic Services is pleased to assist residents and the local healthcare community with low-priority interfacility patient movement where an ambulance is the most suitable method of transportation. To this end we have put additional ambulances on the road in both Elliot Lake and Thessalon. However it must be recognized that, even with these additional resources, we can only move low-priority patients when the use of our limited resources will not jeopardize our prime mandate of emergency medical coverage.
Emergency Work
The prime mandate of Algoma District Paramedic Services is to provide out-of-hospital emergency medical care to the residents and visitors of the Algoma District.
Deployment Strategy
As you can see, there is typically one ambulance available in each community at any given time. While history tells us that this is normally adequate to provide emergency coverage for our call volume, our ability to respond in a timely manner to emergencies is affected greatly when that lone ambulance is used to transport patients between medical facilities (non-emergency work).
In addition to the ambulance deployment above, Algoma District Paramedic Services has two (2) Ford F-150 4×4 pickup trucks. These vehicles are Emergency Response vehicles (ERVs). There is one ERV stationed in each division, one in Blind River and the other in Wawa. Algoma District Paramedic Services Commanders use these vehicles for:
- administrative duties
- responding to emergency calls as a first responder
- responding to emergency calls to support on-scene Paramedics
- responding to large scale incidents requiring on-scene command
The movement of our vehicles and assignment of calls is controlled directly by the Sault Ste. Marie Central Ambulance Communication Centre (CACC), operated by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care’s Emergency Health Services Branch. Putting it briefly, we provide the CACC with our deployment strategy and they make the decisions with regard to how these resources are used. We try very hard to work collaboratively with the CACC to ensure that our ability to respond to an emergency call for help is not delayed for any reason, including non-emergency work.
| COMMUNITY | 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM | 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM |
| Elliot Lake | 2 ambulance (on-site) | 2 ambulances (1 on-site & 1 on-call) |
| Blind River | 1 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
| Thessalon | 2 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
| Richards Landing | 1 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
| Wawa | 1 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
| Dubreuilville | 1 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
| White River | 1 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
| Hornepayne | 1 ambulance (on-site) | 1 ambulance (on-call) |
*The second ambulance is staffed from Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.