KENORA – “Downstaffing” is an everyday thing in the Kenora district’s ambulance services.
The paramedics’ union, CUPE Local 5911, has lately taken to posting each day’s downstaffing – reduction in staff levels – on its Facebook page.
Monday’s status update, for example, reported that Sioux Lookout services had been “downstaffed to 1 ambulance for the day.”
The situation is by now familiar to David Hamilton, the Kenora District Services Board’s chief of emergency medical services.
“Since about 2019 we’ve been experiencing some downstaffing,” he said this week in a phone interview.
“Everybody really dug deep and answered the call” during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, but the pandemic coincided with an expansion of services in the district.
The expansion included creation of a community paramedic program to support seniors, establishing a base in Wabaseemoong and “adding trucks (ambulances) in places like Dryden within the district,” he said.
But while Northwest EMS has expanded and enhanced what it offers, the number of paramedics in its employ has been stagnant.
“We had about 140 paramedics on staff in 2019,” said Hamilton. “At the end of 2024 we have roughly the same amount — about 140, give or take a couple.
“Health care in general, there’s far more demand on it these days, so we have been expanding our services. But with that expansion comes other challenges – growth challenges, I guess.”
He said the service, which covers a wide area including Kenora, Red Lake, Ignace, Pickle Lake and Sioux Lookout, “is about 20 per cent short” of the number of paramedics it needs.
Derek Hamilton, president of CUPE Local 5911, told Newswatch the EMS shortages have led to a lot of stress as staff are temporarily assigned to communities other than their own.
“We’re running into lots of situations where vehicles are being moved across larger distances, too,” he said.
“The biggest example I have is between Dryden and Sioux Lookout. Sioux Lookout is supposed to have two full-time ambulances day and night, so four ambulances in a 24-hour period. Right now, they’re barely staffing two a day.
“And when they can’t staff those trucks (in Sioux Lookout), they have to pull staff out of Dryden to do it.
“And then when they pull staff out of Dryden, then they have to pull staff out of Kenora to fill Dryden, and you get this domino effect going across the board where now … you’ve reduced the services across the district by moving ambulances.”
Sioux Lookout Mayor Doug Lawrance told Newswatch he is “aware of concerns” but ambulance coverage in his municipality has been satisfactory.
“KDSB is doing the best they can to cover Sioux Lookout,” he said. “The situation isn’t perfect, but we’re doing OK.”
The paramedic shortage is hardly unique to the Kenora district, Lawrance added.
Indeed, the District of Rainy River Services Board temporarily closed one of its four ambulance stations last year in response to a shortage of paramedics.
Rainy River board chair Deborah Ewald said her district is about 30 per cent short of the 46 full-time equivalent paramedic staffing it needs to operate four ambulance stations.
