Slow response time from Emergency vehicles

There is concern within the medical fraternity about the length of time ambulances are taking to respond to medical emergencies.

President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners Dr Lynda Williams has disclosed that some patients have reported waiting for up to five hours on an ambulance.

But the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) has maintained that its Emergency Ambulance Service is neither short of ambulances nor human resources and that its priority dispatch system is consistent with international standards. A spokesperson also disclosed details of a strategic plan to “decentralise” the ambulance service and add four more ambulances.

“We are concerned about the timely provision of ambulance services,” Dr Williams told Barbados TODAY.

She added “I’ve had some near misses. I had a patient wait five hours for an ambulance just last week.

The BAMP president admitted that she had not yet approached the QEH about the issues as they were initially thought to be associated with the national COVID-19 response. She said delays are said to be particularly bad on evenings and even more so on weekends and public holidays.

Clinical Director at the Barbados Diabetes Foundation Dr Diane Brathwaite meanwhile recounted the experience of a client who went into cardiac arrest outside the foundation’s Warrens, St Michael headquarters. According to her, emergency personnel were unable to respond in time and the medical team on hand had to resuscitate the patient and rush her to the hospital for treatment.

“This happens a lot in Barbados where you have people that may be in a critical accident or like our client who had a cardiac arrest and you cannot access an ambulance because there is no ambulance to be found anywhere,” said Dr Brathwaite. “I think the emergency services need to figure out how they can tackle this, whether it’s a case of having ambulances scattered at fire stations throughout Barbados,” she suggested.

Former National Union of Public Workers’ General Secretary Roslyn Smith who witnessed the incident expressed concern about a “deficiency” of emergency personnel in emerging urban areas like Warrens.

In a written response submitted by Communications Specialist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Lyn-Marie Deane, the hospital insisted that the eight ambulances in service were consistent with World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulations. The hospital added that four to six crews are on duty at any given time.

“WHO guidelines stipulate that for efficient emergency care delivery, the recommended ambulance to population ratio is 1 to 50,000 persons,” Deane disclosed.

“Therefore, for a population the size of Barbados, with approximately 288,000 persons, six is the minimum required number of ambulances, and the EAS currently has eight ambulances in its fleet.

“However,…there are occasions when we do not always have an adequate complement of ambulances to deal with the public demand,” she added. In such instances, the communications specialist said cases are outsourced to private providers.

Deane disclosed that the EAS’ priority dispatch system is the same one used in countries like the USA, Canada and the UK.

“The details of the call are placed into the system which determines the priority level assigned to the call,” Deane explained.

Priority one calls, which receive the fastest response times, are for people with injuries and illnesses considered life-threatening including heart attacks, strokes and gunshot wounds. Priority two calls refer to non-life threatening issues and priority three calls are for inter-facility transfers.

Deane explained that of the EAS’ 15,000 annual calls, 70 per cent are rated priority one, 29 per cent priority 2 and one per cent are priority three.

“The hospital’s strategic plan has identified a need for four additional ambulances which will bring the current fleet to 12 vehicles,” she disclosed.

“To reach this number, the Maria Holder Memorial Trust is in the process of donating an ambulance, and funding has been identified for the purchase of a second ambulance this financial year.

“Therefore by the end of this financial year Barbadians will be able to benefit from the addition of these two new vehicles to the EAS’ fleet, bringing the total number of responding ambulances to 10,” she added.

The QEH spokeswoman revealed that the EAS had already started expanding from its Wildey, St Michael headquarters with an ambulance depot in Arch Hall, St Thomas. She added that discussions between the QEH and the Barbados Fire Service had already started to identify additional locations for the decentralisation of the ambulance service.

kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb