What are ambulance services? These are the medical services, which are provided to people, who are suffering from some kind of urgent health problems, which in many cases have the potential to lead to serious or even fatal consequences. Paramedics are the first medical specialists, who contact the patients, experiencing life-threatening symptoms, and the first to deal with those symptoms. Hence, one can justly claim that ambulance services are the kind of the health care services that actually save patients’ lives.
Unfortunately, during recent years, it has become obvious that the Canadian ambulance system does not work in a proper way, which means that the health and life of every Canadian is put at threat. In fact, an emergency case can happen to anyone, regardless of the age, the gender or the state of health. And that makes the situation even more threatening and frightening.
What Are the Major Problems of the Emergency Medical Services in Canada?
- The lack of staff. According to some experts, paramedics should be treated similar to firefighters. There should always be a sufficient number of specialists available, even in case they will spend a certain part of their shift having rest and waiting for calls. When it comes to any kind of medical services, even the slightest lack of personnel may lead to tragic consequences. Patients cannot and should not wait for hours for an ambulance crew to arrive.
- Delays at the hospitals. The task of an ambulance team is to transport a patient to a hospital and to hand him over to its personnel. But, due to the fact that today hospitals are overloaded, in some cases paramedics have to wait there for hours together with their patients, since they should escort them by the law. No doubt, that is too long. And that may lead to another patient waiting for hours for paramedics to arrive, which may cost him the health or even life. More to the point, Canadians are rapidly aging (similar to most other nations in the world), which means that local hospitals are likely to get even more overloaded in the future.
- Little time for rest. Paramedics are the medical specialists that have to deal with serious and dangerous health consequences, and that requires much physical and psychological durability. Sure, they need breaks between calls to have a short rest and to gather themselves up in order to keep performing their functions effectively. Apart from the lack of staff, there is one more reason for this problem. As of now, ambulance crews cannot return to their bases after a call, they should wait for the next call at posts right on the road. As a result, paramedics are constantly under stress, which makes a negative impact on their health and working capacity.
What Can Canadians Do In Such Conditions?
Most importantly, it is the responsibility of the government to fix the situation. However, as you can see, there is a slim chance that the Canadian ambulance system will be dramatically changed in the near future. It is likely to take a significant amount of time for all the problems to be solved.
As a potential patient, the only thing you can do is to take proper care of your health and well-being, so that you do not need to turn for ambulance medical help in the first place. So, be sure to regularly see your family doctor, stick to his instructions and take all the medications prescribed.
Sure, today, there are millions of Canadians, who experience certain difficulties with paying for prescription drugs. But, there are several ways to cut the expenses: to switch to generics, which are much more affordable than brand medications, to revise the list of the prescription medicines you take together with a specialist (there is a chance that you can safely stop using a couple of products), to use the services of online pharmacies. One should note that Canadian online pharmacies enjoy the popularity among patients from all around the world. Many of them offer a huge assortment of brand and generic medications, premium-quality products, affordable prices, beneficial loyalty programs for steady customers, 24/7 support services, as well as fast and safe international delivery. So, they are definitely worth trying.