Huron County Council Approves 2025 Land Ambulance Response Time Performance Plan

by Bob Montgomery

Huron County council approved the Land Ambulance Response Time Performance Plan presented by the county's Chief of Emergency Services at this week's council meeting.

Jeff Horseman says the 2024 projected year end response times puts them on par for their response time target that they filed with the province for the year. Horseman points out their call volume continues to increase, as it is across the province, so that makes it difficult to improve on those response times without adding staff and vehicles. The recommendation at this point is to stay with the current response time and look at it again towards the end of 2025, and that's what council agreed to do.

There are a couple of reasons for the increase in call volume. One is that more people are moving into Huron County, so the call volume increases accordingly and the population is growing right now in most rural communities. The other factor is the age of the people in rural communities. The good news is we live longer than we used to but as we get older we tend to have more conditions that require medical care and that often means paramedics responding to an emergency. That situation has contributed significantly to the two to three percent call volume increase year to year that they've been experiencing for the last six to eight years. Horseman shares that he doesn't expect that the call volume will decrease in the foreseeable future. Without adding resources, that will affect their response time.