KDSB Not Budging On Land Ambulance Issue

The Kenora District Services Board isn’t backing off on implementing a new policy that could allow the Board to bill hospitals and nursing homes for non-urgent land ambulance patient transfers or cut the service out all together.
The KDSB has met with Hospital CAO’s to discuss the issue and further one-on-one meetings are planned.
Both sides still have differing views on the issue.
Board member Dennis Leney says this has been going on for 20-years and it has to end now.
Leney says they are basically running the service for free and stresses it should go back to the hospitals.
The Board says non-emergency patient transfers costs them $450,000 a year and prevents ambulances from dealing with critical calls in a timely manner.
The Board does note that if progress is made with hospitals, they will back off.
The new policy takes effect November 6th.
The land ambulance woes don’t end there for the KDSB.
Ontario’s Air Ambulance service has gone back to a requirement to have land ambulance support on every single call.
Dennis Leney says the double dispatching has caused nothing but problems.
Leney says he’s seen a case in Pickle Lake where ambulances were dispatched from Ignace, Sioux Lookout and Pickle Lake to join the fire department and ORNGE.
Leney says when you have four different crews responding to one call you are going to be short in other areas.
Leney cites another case where a heart attack patient endured a lengthy wait because there were no land ambulances in the area.
He adds in some cases they go out to a call and aren’t even needed.