By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
The 841,838 km. Northumberland ambulances travelled in 2023 is the equivalent of 21 trips around the globe.
This was just one of the Northumberland Paramedics statistics for 2023 shared by Deputy Chief of Quality Improvement and Professional Standards Gord Nevis and Deputy Chief of Operations Keith Barrett at county council’s Community Health Committee meeting for April.
That year saw 25,262 calls for service, and Barrett listed the top 10 call types – weakness and dizziness, musculoskeletal issues, abdominal and pelvic pain, dyspnea, behaviour or psychiatric issues, trauma or injury, ischemic chest pain, nausea or vomiting, decreased level of consciousness and soft-tissue injury.
Barrett mentioned increasing offload delays at the four hospitals they deliver patients to (Northumberland Hills Hospital, Campbellford Memorial Hospital, Trenton Memorial Hospital and Peterborough Regional Health Centre).
Their First Response Unit, which is an important service to rural areas, responded to 439 calls (and were first to the scene in more than half of them) for such events as motor-vehicle accidents, chest pain, trauma and stroke.
Nevis reported that each paramedic had received 40 hours of training in 2023, tackling such issues as legislative training on updated standards as well as crisis intervention, skills maintenance and de-escalation training.
Councillor Mandy Martin took special note of the 133 treatable cardiac-arrest calls, noting their 17% success rate.
“Very impressive indeed,” Martin declared.
“I think the other part of that equation is, the provincial average is 10%. Here we are in this rural area, and the Northumberland Paramedics are performing way ahead of the provincial standard saving lives. I think that’s worth noting.”
