Ambulance service strains to meet skyrocketing demand amid COVID-19 Omicron wave

It’s not just hospitals bearing the weight of COVID-19’s Omicron variant.

Middlesex-London Paramedic Service (MLPS) is warning that ambulance service could soon be stretched to its limit

“To be quite honest, I think it’s a matter of time,” warns MLPS Chief Neal Roberts. “It’s not a matter of if it’s going to happen, it’s a matter of when.”

On Thursday, 21 of approximately 400 MLPS employees were isolating at home.

At the same time, offload delays at emergency rooms are growing longer and call volumes have exceeded all projections.

Chief Roberts calls it a “perfect storm.”

“It’s far exceeding our ability to meet demand at times,” he admits. “We have what’s called an emergency, but not an ‘acute emergency’. Those calls are being held. Where it’s an acute emergency those calls are being responded to.”

To keep frontline ambulance service adequately staffed, a series of mobile vaccination clinics starting Jan. 9 at various locations in Middlesex County will be operated by retired paramedics and those normally in administrative roles.

Roberts warns the situation would be even worse had London and Middlesex County politicians not agreed to put three additional 12-hour ambulances on the road last year.

But soon that extra capacity risks being overwhelmed.

Chief Roberts is asking the public to consider the severity of a medical condition before dialling 9-1-1.

“If it’s not a true emergency, please go see your family physician,” he says. “Please go to a walk in clinic, but don’t activate 9-1-1 unless it’s a true emergency...The system is overwhelmed.”