Frontenac Paramedic Base Opening at Glenburnie

Jeff Green | Jul 10, 2024

While the construction project at the Frontenac County Campus in Glenburnie took years of planning and construction, another project at the north end of the property, the construction of a new ambulance base to serve the population of East Kingston and Storrington District in South Frontenac, seemed to go up much more quickly.

But the entire planning and construction time for the base was actually about 4 years. Although for much of that time, Frontenac Paramedic Services were dealing with some other, rather pressing issues. Frontenac Paramedics played a major role in the COVID response, working with other healthcare services in the region, dealing with off-load delays at Kingston General Hospital, and with staffing issues within and in the wake of the pandemic.

Frontenac Paramedics were not alone in dealing with these stresses. The reality on the ground was the same throughout Eastern Ontario. The changes brought on by the pandemic and its aftermath were severe enough that a regional Paramedic Services Situational Overview, prepared in 2019, was no longer viable, and a refresh was necessary.

That refresh, prepared and released on May 1, 2023, by Apexpro Consulting, painted a grim picture.

It found that in the four years following the release of the 2019 report, call volumes had increased, response times had worsened, time on task had increased, and overall workload had risen well beyond the maximum threshold needed to provide accessible response times and avoid overworking paramedics.

“The relatively high workload, over a prolonged period that commenced with the onset of COVID, is taking its toll on paramedics. Fatigue has set in. Frustration, stress, and absenteeism are on the rise. The strain is wearing on paramedic morale. Relatively large numbers of paramedics are off work, mainly for mental health-related reasons, and increasing numbers of paramedics (including seasoned staff) have opted entirely out of health care,” according to the report.

While these stresses on paramedic services may have seemed far away on a brilliantly sunny Friday morning in front of a brand new ambulance base which is planning to usher in faster response times in a growing region, they remained on the mind of Frontenac Chief of Paramedic Services Gale Chevalier.

“The number of hours paramedics across Eastern Ontario spend at emergency departments waiting to transfer care of their patients to hospital staff are up by at least a factor of four since 2018. Paramedics are working longer hours with fewer breaks since the pandemic began in 2020. Five years ago, we typically received 350-400 applications for 20 or so open paramedic positions, this year we received about a quarter of that number. Even something as straightforward as ordering a new ambulance has become much more complicated because of rising costs and because the wait-time for delivery is now more than two years,” she said.

She compared solving the huge problems that paramedic services and the municipalities that run them are facing is “a bit like eating an elephant; if you take one bite at a time and don’t stop chewing, eventually you’ll succeed. And paramedics and our funding partners are chewing like never before.”

She noted that by working cooperatively with the staff at Kingston General Hospital, the off-load delay time (OLD) issue that the Apexpro report identified as a core issue behind delayed response times in Eastern Ontario, has been alleviated somewhat. Also, she said a new dispatch system that is slated to come into effect in our region soon will make a difference by “better identifying and prioritising emergency calls”.

She said that the success of the Community Paramedicine program, of which Frontenac Paramedics were a pioneer along with Renfrew County, has led to a decrease in calls by providing alternative care for many residents of Frontenac County and Kingston.

“And of course, this new base represents a big bite of the elephant, too. Now we can accommodate more paramedics and more ambulances closer to some of the fastest-growing and highest-demand areas of the Township of South Frontenac, the City of Kingston, and along the 401,” she said.

She thanked Frontenac County Council and the City of Kingston for providing funding for the project.

Finally, Chevalier, who is leaving her job as Chief of Paramedic Services in a couple of months, thanked her colleagues at Frontenac Paramedic Services.

“Finally, I want to thank my Frontenac Paramedics colleagues for their unwavering dedication and determination, especially over these last four years in what is a difficult time in our profession. In the two-plus years since construction on this project was approved – and every day and night, always and no matter what – you do the hard and usually un-lauded work of serving patients and residents. It is my honour and pleasure to have you as colleagues, friends, and family.”

In her remarks, Frontenac County Warden Frances Smith thanked Chevalier and recently “relieved” Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender for guiding the “visioning and administration” of the project.

“I’d like to thank the county’s funding partner on this project: the City of Kingston. We have many competing priorities but ensuring paramedics are equipped to serve residents in our region is among our most important tasks, especially as the population and demand for emergency medical service continues to grow so quickly. This new base is possible because we contributed to it together. I’m grateful for that partnership and our joint accomplishments, and I look forward to more in the future.”

City-County relations reached a low ebb in 2019 when Frontenac County launched a lawsuit to recover payments owed to the County by the City for paramedic services. The lawsuit was abandoned in the early weeks of the pandemic when Kingston City Council accepted a proposal by Mayor Bryan Patterson to pay the outstanding debt, and changed the way the City accounted for financial transfers to Frontenac County.

The MPP's from both Kingston and Lanark Frontenac Kingston, Ted Hsu and John Jordan, attended the opening, as did Warden Smith, Deputy Warden Vandewal, Mayor Lichty from Frontenac Islands, and three other members of Frontenac County Council. Councillor Conny Glenn was in attendance from the City of Kingston.