Jean-Pierre Rouleau

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

Last Thursday afternoon a woman fell outside the Manoir Westmount seniors’ residence on Sherbrooke Street West. A spokesperson from the Manoir confirmed that the woman, a resident of the Manoir, was fine, but that it did take Urgences Santé two hours to arrive on the scene.

According to another resident of the building, who had called The Suburban to report the incident, Westmount security was indeed on the scene. But the caller said no one was treating the woman.

Urgences-Santé spokesperson Jean-Pierre Rouleau admits that, yes, the wait time for an ambulance was long, but explained that there are protocols in place that determine how fast an ambulance will be dispatched.

Rouleau confirmed that Urgences-Santé had received the call about the woman at 4:28 p.m. on Thursday, May 29. The person who made the call was on the line with the medical dispatcher. At the time of the call, the woman was said to have had a bloody nose. Based on the phone call, the case was assessed as a “category 3”, meaning the person’s life is not in danger. According to its protocol – Urgences-Santé follows the Clawson Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) – patients who are assessed at category 2, category 1, or category 0 are more urgent, and take precedence.

Last Thursday afternoon was busy for Urgences-Santé. An ambulance had been dispatched to the scene outside the Manoir, but had to be redirected to more urgent incidents. In fact, Rouleau tells The Suburban, there were four other higher-priority incidents at the same time.

Rouleau says they had kept regular contact with the individual who made the initial call in order to reassess the woman’s condition, which had remained stable, meaning her case was still considered category 3. At around 5:50 p.m. her condition worsened. At 5:54 she was reassessed as a category 1. First responders were then dispatched to the scene, arriving four minutes later, at 5:58.

The ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later, at 6:13 p.m.

“So, yes, it was long,” Rouleau said. “It’s sad. It was not the kind of situation we would wish for. But then again, we were in constant contact with the woman. Her life was not deemed to be in danger. We tried to send ambulances several times, but there were graver emergencies nearby. So those ambulances were redirected.”

The woman was eventually transported to hospital in what Urgences-Santé calls “non-urgent mode,” as her condition was stable. n