NDP concerned about hospital crowding causing ambulance absence

On Monday, Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas NDP MPP Sandy Shaw said that even more incidents of ambulances being unavailable in Hamilton last week should be a wake-up call to Doug Ford: health care needs more funding, not more cuts.

Ford is continuing where the Liberals left off, underfunding hospitals, creating a hallway medicine crisis. That leaves ambulances stuck in crowded emergency room bays, unable to offload patients into overcrowded emergency departments. When one or zero ambulances are available as a result, a “code zero” is called.

“The city of Hamilton experienced five code zero events in just three days last week,” said Shaw. “Thursday’s code zero lasted more than two hours. Hamilton’s Chief Paramedic says it’s an issue of hospital flow – emergency patients are stuck waiting on stretchers for more than two hours while hospitals scramble to find space.”

In January, Hamilton had over 30 code zeros. With five code zero events last week alone, Shaw said it’s clear Ford is taking this issue from bad to worse.

“Hamilton families have suffered for years, languishing in emergency rooms, waiting rooms and hospital hallways,” said Shaw. “And as a result, families are terrified to know that when they need an ambulance in an emergency, they won’t know if one is coming.

“And with Mr. Ford’s Conservatives threatening that hospitals will need to do even more with even less, this problem is going to get even worse.”

In a response to Shaw’s question to Doug Ford, Conservative Minister of Tourism Culture and Sport, Sylvia Jones, said that code zeros are Hamilton’s problem.