Questions and Answers

Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Program

Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Program

The Manitoulin-Sudbury District Services Board in partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario has worked to develop Public Access Defibrillation (PAD) Programs for the communities within the Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB area.

The Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB Paramedic Services oversees the PAD program for this area.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) can strike anywhere and at any time. It can happen to anyone: an employee in the workplace, a shopper in a mall, an athlete on the playing field, a spectator at an event, a traveler at an airport or in a plane, ferry or train, or a pedestrian on a busy street.

A person suffering from SCA requires cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which involves chest compressions in an effort to create artificial circulation by manually pumping blood through the heart (with or without the provision of breaths) and can be provided by anyone.  But CPR by itself is not enough. 

Combined with CPR, the use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) may increase the likelihood of saving a person’s life by 75% or more over CPR alone.

An AED is a small, portable, and easy-to-use device that assesses the heart of a person in cardiac arrest for a shockable rhythm. If such a rhythm is detected, the provider is instructed to press a button to deliver a shock or series of shocks to the victim’s heart, stopping the heart to allow it to return to a normal rhythm. If no shockable rhythm is detected, no shock can be given and the provider must perform CPR until professional help arrives.

Until 2005, only medical and paramedical staff used AEDs. However, the advent of safe and easy-to-use AEDs and changes to legislation now makes it possible to extend the use of AEDs to people with no medical training. The use of the AED is so simple that anyone can use it by following the voice promts provided by the AED but training is always recommended.  The training is provided in a standard CPR course.  Please register for one today and maybe tomorrow, you might save a life.

For more Information on the PAD program please visit the Heart & Stroke Foundation website.

For a list of Automated External Defibrillator (AED) in the Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB jurisdiction click here.

To view a Google Map showing the location of AED's click here.





Overview

emsManitoulin-Sudbury DSB Paramedic Services provides pre-hospital care to the sick and injured at a primary care level. Our primary focus is to provide professional & medically proven health care to the communities that we serve.


Our commitment to the communities we service in providing land ambulance service is:

  • To utilize only staff qualified under the Ambulance Act and its regulations (Approximately 115 staff members working at a Basic Life Support Level).
  • To utilize only vehicles meeting the current "Ontario Provincial Ambulance and Emergency Response Standards". (23 ambulances covering our 12 locations).
  • To ensure that all on site staff respond to priority 3, 4 and 8 calls within 2 minutes.
  • To ensure that all on call staff respond to priority 3, 4 and 8 calls within 10 minutes.
  • To ensure that all other calls are done as soon as available resources allow for a response.
  • To continuously monitor, meet and try to exceed the 90th percentile response time standard in place.
  • To ensure that patient care being provided is in accordance with the standards set out in the current "Basic Life Support Patient Care Standards" , and local Base Hospital requirements.
  • To supplement land ambulance resources with an Emergency First Response Team response in areas where teams are in force.

Calls for Service

Emergency Calls

The prime mandate of Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB Paramedic Services is to provide emergency medical care and transportation to the residents and visitors of the Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB.
 

Non-Emergency Calls

The Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB has many people who are either admitted to or live in a healthcare facility. These people are often in need of healthcare procedures and/or consultations that regularly require them to travel to their local hospital for treatment or to Sudbury for more specialized treatment or consultation. An ambulance should only be the method of choice for moving someone where:

  • the situation is an emergency
  • there is a need for a stretcher and the person is medically unstable and in need of an escort
  • a medical professional has determined that an ambulance is the most appropriate option to transport the patient.


Alternatively patients can be moved by an accessible taxi, family members, a transportation service offered by a volunteer organization or a private medical transport service, where available.

Manitoulin-Sudbury DSB Paramedic Services provides Non-Emergency transportation to our residents when the decision has been made that the ambulance is the best method of transportation because of the patient's condition. However it must be recognized that, even with these additional resources, we can only move non-emergency patients when the use of our limited resources will not jeopardize our prime mandate of emergency medical coverage.
  

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