There are no hospitals on the Frontenac Islands.
So, when a woman fell unresponsive two weeks ago, first responders did what they always do: they took the patient to Kingston, a 20-minute ferry ride away.
But while the islands have 29 firefighters and emergency medical personnel that can be on the scene in five to 10 minutes, they're not allowed to take the patient to the ferry terminal — only paramedics in an official county ambulance can do that, Mayor Judy Greenwood-Speers said.
There's just one problem: there are also no ambulances on the Frontenac Islands.
"The boat had to turn around, go back to Kingston, pick up the ambulance, come to the island. Ambulance gets off. They have not even assessed the patient, they tell the boat, you don't have to wait. They go, they assess the patient — whoops. Get back down to the boat, wait for the boat to come back," Greenwood-Speers said.
"It was two hours before she got to the hospital. She was minutes away from death."
Greenwood-Speers, a registered nurse of 39 years, said she jumped the ferry line four times when her late husband had cardiac events.
"I'm phoning through to the hospital, telling them I'm coming in hot, because I could not live with the thought of calling an ambulance and waiting for it, and having him die," she said. "I could live with him dying beside me in the vehicle knowing I'm getting into the hospital in the fastest method possible."
At the recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference, the mayor stood in front of hundreds of fellow civic leaders and asked Solicitor General Michael Kerzner for a solution.
She called on the government to allow volunteer first responders and firefighters to drive patients to the hospital, through amendments to the Pandemic and Emergency Preparedness Act, and the Ambulance Act.
"I've spoken to my own fire chief and EMS and they want to be able to transfer those patients, whether it's in an older, decommissioned ambulance or loaded into one of their vehicles — but I'm talking life and death," she said.
Kerzner said he would talk to Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney about it. He said the government is looking into simultaneous notification, which would alert all nearby first responders and allow a firefighter to start CPR, say, before paramedics can arrive.
Greenwood-Speers said she wasn't particularly impressed with his answer. But his policy assistant reached out the next day to set up a meeting, which she said she plans to take.
Kerzner's office didn't comment by press time. The Ministry of Transportation declined to comment.
Similar scenes play out in many rural Ontario communities, where the county ambulances are often tied up in cities, Greenwood-Speers said. Instead of water, it's often hundreds of kilometres of land between a single ambulance and its target, she said.
"It is applicable to many, many rural settings. I got fist-bump by several after the fact," she said.
Greenwood-Speers blames the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), which represents Frontenac County paramedics.
"About a decade ago, professional drivers, such as firefighters, EMS workers, police, taxi drivers, or driving instructors could drive an ambulance in an emergency. And the union got that removed because they want more union people to be hired," she said.
OPSEU Local 462 president Shauna Dunn, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said it's "misguided" to hold the union responsible. She blamed the province and municipality, who fund paramedic services 50/50.
"The simplest solution ... would be to appropriately fund the paramedic service on the island. There is no need to change the legislation to allow firefighters to drive the ambulance," she said in a statement, noting Frontenac County voted to cut paramedic service from the island in February.
The Frontenac Islands used to have its own volunteer ambulance service — the last of its kind in Ontario — complete with its own ambulance. In 2016, it was taken over by the county paramedics with a promise to keep up the same level of service, Greenwood-Speers said.
"That has steadily eroded to the point where, this year, we have no ambulance. It's official. No ambulance at all," she said.
It's causing many seniors to sell their homes and move to the mainland where they feel safer, the mayor said.
"But they've never lived there in their lives," she said. "They don't want to have to leave."
