CLEVELAND (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team found the city of Cleveland is experiencing lengthy delays in dispatching ambulances to some of its most serious medical emergencies, even though the city says it is nearly at capacity.
Recent calls for help prompted us to take a closer look at Cleveland EMS response times.
A woman called to seek help for her 78-year-old mother who was choking on food.
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And, the I-Team found, records show the Cleveland ambulance didn’t get there for 19 minutes.
Now, take a look at a full month of delays we found.
For November, we looked at calls that had been open for at least 20 minutes. That month alone, we identified more than thirty serious and even life-threatening calls that went unanswered for long periods of time.
One hour and nine minutes later, a Cleveland ambulance was dispatched to treat someone with “chest pain/unconsciousness,” records show.
Thirty-six minutes later, an ambulance was dispatched to the traffic “highway” incident. Traffic accidents marked “major” took 27 minutes. For cases such as “patient/unalert”, it takes fifty-seven minutes.
The I-Team exposed EMS staffing shortages as a chronic problem. And, on the day the woman was delayed due to suffocation, the emergency center was running well below its scheduled number of ambulances.
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Last month, Mayor Justin Bieber held a press conference to discuss investing in public safety. In fact, the city has noted that EMS wages in Cleveland have increased significantly. And, when the new class graduates, EMS will be fully staffed.
However, records show some callers still face significant delays during emergencies.
Mark Barrett, president of the Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees (CARE) and EMS union, released a statement. “CARE members of Cleveland EMS respond to more than 100,000 emergency calls each year, providing quality patient care to Cleveland. We look forward to continuing to work with the Bibb Administration to implement proactive solutions to address our extremely high call volumes by adding more response units or working to connect people to other medical resources and free up ambulances,” he said.
The woman waited a long time for an ambulance after her mother choked on food, she told The Dispatch.
“I don’t know what happened, but it took 20 minutes to dispatch EMS.”
And, she told I TEAM, “To me, it felt like 60 minutes. It’s completely unacceptable. I hope if this was their parents, they would be a little concerned.”
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