Representatives of Ornge, Ontario's air ambulance operation, told a coroner's inquest it’s still impossible to meet the Ministry of Health’s timelines for transportation of critically ill patients in the north, although response times have improved since 2021.
Chief operating officer Wade Durham and the chief medical officer, Dr. Bruce Sawadsky, testified at the hearings into the deaths of five members of Constance Lake First Nation during an outbreak of fungal lung disease blastomycosis in 2021.
Luke Moore, 43, and Lizzie Sutherland, 56, died at the Notre Dame hospital in Hearst while waiting for flights to better-equipped hospitals. Their cause of death was blastomycosis.
Sawadsky explained the most critically ill patients, described as having a life- or limb-threatening conditions, are supposed to be picked up and taken to their destination within four hours and cannot be refused care, according to the province’s policy.
He said, however, even with Ornge's best efforts, that is impossible in northern Ontario because of the vast distances.
Sawadsky said that in reality, in 2021 at the time of the outbreak, the time to get an air ambulance to a critically ill patient in the north, to a town such as Hearst, was five hours, but that has since improved to just under four
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