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The province says it’s investing more than $9 million in Northumberland to help connect more people to emergency care faster and increase the availability of paramedics and land ambulances locally.
The investment total, according to a recent release from Northumberland-Peterborough MPP David Piccini’s office, is $9,016,894.
“This investment of over $9 million demonstrates our government’s continued commitment to strengthening emergency health services across Northumberland County,” said Piccini. “These targeted investments will improve ambulance availability, reduce offload delays at hospitals, and enhance overall system capacity, resulting in better health outcomes for patients across Northumberland County.
“I commend the collaborative efforts of our paramedics, municipal partners, and health-care professionals who continue to deliver critical services with professionalism and dedication.”
In Northumberland, the province said the investment translates to an increase in base land ambulance funding by 10 per cent.
The investment is part of nearly $1 billion in land ambulance funding dedicated across the province, translating to a reported average increase of 8.7 per cent from 2024, reads the release.
Meanwhile, to further reduce delays paramedics encounter when dropping patients off at a hospital, Piccini noted the province is also investing $163,800 locally through the dedicated offload nurses’ program, which is supposed to help hire more nurses and other health-care professionals dedicated to off-loading ambulance patients in hospital EDs.
“The program allows paramedics to get back out into the community faster and respond to their next 911 call sooner and has played a significant role in reducing ambulance offload times and increasing ambulance availability for 911 patients across the province,” reads Piccini’s release.
“As a result of this investment and the dedication of health-care professionals, provincial ambulance offload time has been reduced by approximately 65 per cent since its peak in October 2022.”
Officials also noted that Ontario continues to implement a medical priority dispatch system (MPDS) across the province, which is supposed to help better prioritize and triage emergency calls and dispatch paramedics sooner.
