An 11 Hour Wait for an Ambulance

Nothing good ever comes out of a burueacracy. Add in the government, and things get worse. B.C. woman with broken hip waits nearly 12 hours for ambulance

She fell, but could reach a phone. She called 911 at 7:11 p.m. An ambulance arrived at 6:44 a.m. 11 hours and change. lying on the floor. He son called 911 several times, and was assured that help was on the way.

“Throughout the evening, several ambulances were dispatched to this call, but while en route, the paramedic crews were subsequently diverted to other calls, which were triaged as potentially life-threatening,” the ambulance service said in a statement. It apologized for the delay and says a review will take place.

Why do I bring up bureaucracies?

It happened on a night where three in every 10 Metro Vancouver ambulances were left parked because of a shortage of paramedics.

Now I have not studied the paramedic situation in British Columbia, but in many cities and counties in the US there is a shortage of ambulance personnel because the pay doesn't live up to the stress. In some areas where the paramedic service is run by fire departments, paramedics have less career opportunity and make less money than fire fighters. They understandably switch careers to make more money. And some of them get out of the career because they get tired of being one of the first people to arrive at an accident, shooting, whatever. Add in low pay, and the high stress is very much not worth it.

So if you don't have enough paramedics, why not recruit more? Well you would need to pay more. Why not pay more? It's the government. And there are probably unions involved as well. Oh, and the government (especially in Canada) and the insurance companies LIMIT how much they will pay for an ambulance ride. This puts a hard limit on what the services can afford to pay. Bureaucracies as far as the eye can see.

The more governments and insurance companies squeeze, the more brittle the whole system becomes. Eventually it will shatter. More people will quit, forcing those who remain to work longer hours, which will result in more people quitting. Rinse. Repeat.

I also wonder what percentage of the shortage was a result of COVID-19 mandates.