Several paramedic services in the Greater Toronto Area are supporting the Hospital for Sick Children as it continues to operate over capacity, providing the downtown facility ambulance to support patient transfers.
Paramedic services from Peel and York confirmed to CP24 Tuesday that they had moved 17 patients from SickKids since last week when they began lending their EMS vehicles to the hospital.
A spokesperson for SickKids said that the downtown pediatric hospital has had daily access to a designated EMS vehicle since Dec. 4 “to support timely transfers to other hospitals.” The ambulance would be available from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“These transfers would typically be for pediatric patients who can be cared for in a pediatric unit at a community hospital that would often be closer to home,” the hospital said in a statement.
SickKids added that the transfers are being done to maintain or increase its capacity amid high-patient volumes.
“We have always worked with community hospital partners who have pediatric units to transfer patients who do not require the specialized, tertiary level of care that SickKids provides. This has been an important component of the system-level coordination required to safely and appropriately care for patients amid the current surge in volumes,” SickKids said.
A spokesperson for Peel Region confirmed that it sent one ambulance dedicated to helping SickKids on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays.
The region said it is sharing the duties with Halton, York and Durham paramedics. It added that from Dec. 5 to Dec. 12, Peel paramedics transferred seven patients.
Meanwhile, York Region said it has been staffing two 12-hour ambulances every week to SickKids since Dec. 6,
“York Region Paramedic Services have joined municipal paramedic partners and are currently supporting the movement of pediatric patients from the Hospital for Sick Children to local hospitals on a rotating schedule,” the region said in a statement.
York Region said its paramedics had moved 10 patients to date.
The move is the latest measure from the hospital, which has seen its resources under immense pressure brought on by a combination of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19.
To help ease the burden, in November SickKids put some surgeries on hold and redeployed some staff to preserve critical care, which has been overcapacity for the past few months.
The hospital’s emergency room has also been flooded by children suffering from respiratory illnesses, resulting in long wait times. One doctor who spoke to the Canadian Press said a child recently spent 36 hours in the ER waiting for an inpatient bed.
Dr. Jason Fischer, the division head of emergency medicine at SickKids, told CP that his department is on track to see more than 90,000 children this year – that's more than the 65,000 patients it usually sees.
The province’s air ambulance service said it had seen an increase in pediatric transfers as hospitals deal with high volumes of sick children.
- With files from The Canadian Press
