‘We keep hearing about helping seniors stay in their homes\u00a0and here is a way to do that really, really well,’ mayor says of county service, which has grown tenfold<\/p>\n
Simcoe County is urging the province to increase funding for its community paramedicine home-visit program after four years without an adjustment, warning the freeze could force staffing cuts and leave hundreds of high-risk residents waiting longer for care.<\/p>\n
In a report to committee of the whole, county staff says the program will again receive $2.33 million in 2026-27, which is\u00a0the same amount provided since 2023-24,\u00a0even as 89 per cent of its budget is tied to salaries and benefits, and inflation continues to erode capacity.<\/p>\n
Jane Sinclair, the county\u2019s general manager of health and emergency services, said the community paramedicine home-visit program has relied on \u201cone\u2011time\u201d funding from the Ministry of Long\u2011Term Care since its launch in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been an incredible program,\u201d she said, noting the in home service began with a roster of about 100 residents.<\/p>\n
With additional annual allocations, the program has expanded significantly and now supports 1,008 patients.<\/p>\n
But each year, Sinclair said, the county receives only one\u2011time funding to operate it.<\/p>\n
The ministry announced in August 2025 that the program would transition to permanent base funding, she said. However, in March the county was advised the funding responsibility had shifted to the Ministry of Health,\u00a0and that the program would continue to receive one\u2011time allocations instead.<\/p>\n
Although the county has received a letter confirming a $2.3\u2011million annual allotment on a one\u2011time basis, Sinclair said the funding has not included any inflationary increases.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be going into our fourth year at that same amount,\u201d she said, adding the program is projecting an estimated\u00a0$300,000 deficit for 2026-27.<\/p>\n
To manage pressures in the interim, the service has left two full\u2011time positions that are temporarily vacant and is operating with 10 community paramedics instead of 12. This allows the program to maintain its current roster,\u00a0but it cannot take on any new patients, she said.<\/p>\n
According to the report, an analysis of 355 people currently on the program’s wait list\u00a0shows many are medically fragile and already heavy users of emergency and hospital services.<\/p>\n
Of those awaiting intake, 185 have experienced moderate to rapid disease progression in the past six months, 52 are facing weekly to monthly exacerbations, 73 have called 911 at least twice, 201 have been admitted to hospital at least once, and 232 are identified as frail and at increased risk of falls, the report states.<\/p>\n
Those findings illustrate that a significant share of wait\u2011listed patients are high\u2011risk, medically complex and deteriorating while they wait, increasing the likelihood they will rely on emergency services and hospital\u2011based care, noted the\u00a0report.<\/p>\n
Patients on the wait list accounted for an estimated 316 calls to 911 over the past six months,\u00a0many of which\u00a0may have been avoided with the “preventative care and in\u2011home exacerbation management” provided through community paramedicine, the report says.<\/p>\n
At roughly $260 per ambulance response, those calls represent more than $80,000 in ambulance costs alone, not including emergency department expenses, the report notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wait\u2011listed patients were also responsible for approximately 243 hospital admissions in the same period. With an estimated cost of $1,274 per hospital day and average stays ranging from 7.1 days for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease\u00a0(COPD) and bronchitis to 9.6 days for heart failure, the report estimates each admission costs between $9,000 and $12,000.<\/p>\n
Over six months, that amounts to more than $2.5 million in hospital\u2011related costs.<\/p>\n
Sinclair told county council that the goal is to maintain the program\u2019s current level of service and ask the province not only to address inflationary pressures \u2014 including the roughly $300,000 shortfall projected for 2026-27 \u2014 but to shift the program from one\u2011time allocations to permanent base funding.<\/p>\n
She added the county also intends to request capital funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know it\u2019s incredible and we know it makes a difference. It keeps people in their homes, avoids service disruption, and achieves sustainable base funding, Sinclair\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
Essa\u00a0Mayor Sandie Macdonald said the findings were concerning.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor $300,000,\u00a0even $500,000,\u00a0look at the amount of money we could save and the number of people we could look after,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to advocate to our government. We keep hearing about helping seniors stay in their homes\u00a0and here is a way to do that really, really well. And they\u2019re not seeing what can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wasaga Beach Mayor Brian Smith said he found it \u201cmind\u2011boggling\u201d that council was even in a position of having to debate continued funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe savings alone,\u00a0just for this county, in one year,\u00a0cover the cost of this service for a year,\u201d he said. \u201cThe squeaky wheel gets the grease. When it comes to paramedicine, and especially this type of program, the dollars that will be saved and the lives that will be saved \u2026 it\u2019s incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith added he has heard directly from residents who have benefited from the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be doing everything possible to advocate for this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin said municipalities have long been asked to stretch limited resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been asked, always, to do more with less. We did that. Now, instead of being rewarded for it, we\u2019re being punished for it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘We keep hearing about helping seniors stay in their homes\u00a0and here is a way to do that really,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392,240732],"class_list":["post-646895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-paramedicinecounty-of-simcoecounty-of-simcoe-councilcounty-of-simcoe-community-paramedicine-programcommunity-paramedicine-home-visit-programcommuninity-paramedicine-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}