The recent and ongoing situations of Essex-Windsor EMS ambulances, which were forced to stop working for hours at a time, have led Essex County to declare a local state of emergency.

Essex County Guard Gary McNamara took the action at 8:45 am on Monday, as the area has witnessed several "Code Black" incidents this month – times when no ambulances are available to respond to emergency calls.

According to what Essex spoke about on Monday, delays in offloading have been sharply increasing since 2020, as hospital emergency rooms are unable to keep up with the number of patients needing admission, resulting in multiple ambulances waiting outside.

The area reported that "sometimes these delays last for more than 12 hours."

Clarifying that "this problem is not unique to the Windsor-Essex area, and the Ontario Association of Paramedic Chiefs has highlighted it as a regional issue requiring urgent provincial action."

McNamara said Essex-Windsor EMS is working with hospitals to solve the problem, but patients are continually at risk and paramedics' morale is negatively affected.

McNamara said: "We are activating this local state of emergency so we can do everything we can to keep our paramedics on the road to respond to emergency calls instead of sitting outside busy hospitals."

For his part, Essex-Windsor EMS President Bruce Krother described the situation as "unacceptable."

Krother said: "Our paramedics and hospital partners are doing everything possible to respond to this crisis, but the causes are complex and related to longstanding systemic issues including hospital capacity, patient flow, and a shortage of available local primary care providers."

McNamara and Essex Windsor will address the media regarding this issue on Monday morning.

Editor: Yusra Bamtraf