1
00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:03,440
Speaker 1: Demand for ambulance's highest on record last year. This is

2
00:00:03,440 --> 00:00:06,800
Speaker 1: according to stats from Saint John seven hundred thousand callouts,

3
00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,200
Speaker 1: thirty percent increase over five years, and the ambulance crews

4
00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:13,920
Speaker 1: attending five hundred and fifty thousand of them an average

5
00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:16,720
Speaker 1: of fifteen hundred a day. Mark quinn Is with the

6
00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:20,759
Speaker 1: Ambulance Association, joins us Now, Hey, Mark, good morning, Ryan,

7
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:22,919
Speaker 1: Good to have you on why is this? Is this

8
00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:25,319
Speaker 1: in line with population growth or is it over and

9
00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:25,799
Speaker 1: above that?

10
00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:28,200
Speaker 2: No, it's over about.

11
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:30,960
Speaker 3: There's a number of factors and there's no single one factor.

12
00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:33,960
Speaker 3: But as a population growth, we've got a a tsunami

13
00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:36,160
Speaker 3: of over sixty five population coming.

14
00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:41,960
Speaker 2: You've got services in certain areas like rural and even

15
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,040
Speaker 2: provincial where people straying to get into their GP or

16
00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:47,720
Speaker 2: actually have a health service at all in those areas.

17
00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:52,400
Speaker 3: And there's in the financial cost because obviously trying to

18
00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:56,520
Speaker 3: get in that cost money. Even if I've got a card,

19
00:00:56,720 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 3: a community service card, that still costs.

20
00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:02,320
Speaker 1: What percent of those callouts are actually needed?

21
00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:08,600
Speaker 4: Well, that's a good question. So the majority of and

22
00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:11,959
Speaker 4: we would say probably cut my information that I've eighty

23
00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:14,480
Speaker 4: percent of them were at the lower or lower acuity

24
00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:17,959
Speaker 4: patients and those are patients that could probably be be

25
00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:22,080
Speaker 4: se seen by a GP or GP type service. And

26
00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:26,760
Speaker 4: so sometimes the embulance service, for end is the only

27
00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:30,080
Speaker 4: health service in a particular area. So that's why sometimes

28
00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:33,360
Speaker 4: we will the services used almost like a pseudo GP

29
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:35,520
Speaker 4: because that's the only way they can access health.

30
00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:38,479
Speaker 1: That's not great, So what do we do about it?

31
00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:40,560
Speaker 1: But well, i mean, apart from trying to fund them

32
00:01:40,560 --> 00:01:43,640
Speaker 1: more on GPS. In the meantime, for you guys, the workload,

33
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:45,880
Speaker 1: I imagine is a little unbearable.

34
00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's constant, and it's i mean, it's what we're

35
00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:54,000
Speaker 3: there to do. But it has grown from you know,

36
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,720
Speaker 3: I've been twenty five years in the inblance services where

37
00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:00,680
Speaker 3: we were only really responded to emergency calls, and now

38
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:04,680
Speaker 3: I've seen a complete change where it's dominated by the

39
00:02:04,680 --> 00:02:09,600
Speaker 3: lower curity GP type patients. And that's even though there's

40
00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:14,840
Speaker 3: a number of initiatives and Saint John have teletrios, remote triarchs,

41
00:02:14,919 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 3: we have paramedics and emblance obviouss, more skills and medications.

42
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,600
Speaker 3: We've got other initiatives, community based initiatives in there, but

43
00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:28,560
Speaker 3: they're not keeping pace with the demand and there's still

44
00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:34,480
Speaker 3: is at times no national strategy between Emblance service primary

45
00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:39,560
Speaker 3: and secondary care health services, and this probably needs to

46
00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:42,640
Speaker 3: be more work done in that area. It does require

47
00:02:42,639 --> 00:02:47,799
Speaker 3: staff at times, it requires experienced practitioners, but yeah, it's

48
00:02:47,919 --> 00:02:50,120
Speaker 3: going to be continue to be a challenge going forward.

49
00:02:50,639 --> 00:02:52,799
Speaker 1: Mark, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you, Mark when

50
00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:55,359
Speaker 1: the Ambulance Association National secretaries.

51
00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:58,320
Speaker 4: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

52
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:01,880
Speaker 2: Listen live to news talks it be from five am weekdays,

53
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:04,200
Speaker 2: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.