12.2.24 – Toronto.com
Peel Regional Police is celebrating a win for decreasing unnecessary 911 calls, thanks to a modernization of the system.
The area including Mississauga and Brampton has implemented the Next Generation 911 (NG911) program, which actually includes a feature that gives the caller clear instructions to acknowledge if they misdialed 911.
To date, the system has received more than 75,000 non-emergency hang-up calls, which has helped reduce the number of wait times by almost 80 per cent.
Recently the call wait times came under scrutiny in the GTA, as news reports shared that some Toronto callers dialing 911 were potentially waiting up to 12 minutes for an operator to answer their call.
Toronto police started a special campaign in October in an attempt to decrease the number of unnecessary 911 calls coming into communications staff.
The campaign, called Make the Right Call, launched Oct. 28.
“The objective of our joint Make the Right Call campaign is to reduce the number of non-emergency calls to 911 by increasing understanding of when to call 911, and when to contact an alternative service,” Toronto police Deputy Chief Lauren Pogue said in a press release. “We want to empower the public with information that ensures everyone gets the right help when needed — especially in emergencies.”
The Toronto police communications centre receives more than 1.2 million calls to 911 annually, with another 664,000 non-emergency calls.
The Make the Right Call campaign encourages residents to learn when to call 311 — if there’s dead wildlife near you, or for noise complaints, for example.
Calling 211 is for when someone is in facing a mental health crisis.
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On Monday, Oct. 28, Deputy Chief of Police Lauren Pogue and Mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow announced the launch of the “Make the Right Call” campaign to help residents make the appropriate call to emergency and non-emergency services, and reduce 911 wait times.
And this month, the province ordered Simcoe County to change the way it handles dispatches, by using a Medical Priority Dispatch System to determine which callers need urgent help, versus ones that can wait a bit longer.
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The Medical Priority Dispatch System is already in use in Toronto, Niagara and Peel Region.
No fee for service
In Ontario, there are no government fees added to your cellphone bill for calling 911.
“Ontario does not apply an additional levy for 911 access,” said Brent Ross, Ministry of the Solicitor General spokesperson. “The 911 costs which appear on phone bills in Ontario are tariffs collected by the phone companies for providing access to the service. These tariffs are set and regulated by the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) and further questions regarding these costs should be directed to them.”
But other provinces do charge a monthly fee, ranging from 43 cents in Nova Scotia to $2.14 in Saskatchewan. Starting Jan. 1, cellphone customers in the Northwest Territories will have a $3 government surcharge added to their bills.
In response to an auditor general report from 2022, Toronto Police Service said a 911 monthly levy is “needed to modernize the 911 Public Safety Answering Point.
“The potential funding from this levy could assist with implementing the mandated Next Generation 911 requirements, and with implementing some of the recommendations in this report, including modernized information systems and better data needed to manage the PSAP operations.”
“Police, fire and paramedics are funded differently in every province and in Ontario there can be very different funding structures at each of the 444 municipalities,” Ontario Paramedic Association president Darryl Wilton said. “(Creating a levy in Ontario) sounds plausible, but I honestly don’t see how that could work.”
Tracking 911 call times
When asked if the province keeps tabs on how long it takes for an operator to answer a 911 call throughout Ontario, a Ministry of the Solicitor General spokesperson said they do not collect this information.
The province does collect information from 911 communicators about how many calls are received, and how long it takes for emergency crews to reach the scene. Those numbers are averaged out and collected in a public document, available at ontario.ca.
It should be noted that some municipalities are covered by an urban area, while others have an upper-tier agency like a county or district.
Many urban areas have been mandated to have emergency personnel on the scene within two minutes of receiving a call.
Upper-tier municipalities, First Nation communities and areas with a designated delivery agent who look after ambulance services have different performance measures. They are required to report to sudden cardiac arrest patients within six minutes, while urgent patients ranked at the top of the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale should be seen within eight minutes.
Many areas are meeting these targets, according to provincial data.
Modernizing 911 calling, texting and more
However, the province has invested $208 million over three years in telecommunications infrastructure to help municipalities and emergency response centres transition to Next Generation 911. The system will eventually let users share video and photos of an accident with 911 dispatchers and also provide their GPS coordinates.
“Next Generation 911, which has been mandated by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to take place by March 4, 2025,” the province said in a press release.
The technology will also eventually allow people who are deaf or hard of hearing to use a text-based system to reach call takers.
Peel Regional Police launched its NG911 at 3:30 a.m. Feb. 21 to help process accidental 911 calls and misdials so call-takers can focus on real emergencies.
On June 18, the London Police Service became the first single-tier municipality in Ontario to launch NG911.
“It means call takers can quickly create multi-party conferences, transfer calls, determine the location of callers and play back recently recorded conversations,” the service said in a press release.
Fit2Sit pilot program
Other ideas are also being tested in attempts to speed up service.
Back in October 2020, Peel Regional Paramedic Services launched Fit2Sit, a pilot program in partnership with William Osler Health System.
The program allows paramedics to leave patients with non-life-threatening illnesses in the waiting room at Brampton Civic Hospital. They are monitored by hospital staff but sit on their own until a nurse or doctor can see them.
The reasons for the program include freeing up stretchers for others in need, allowing paramedics to return to the community faster to respond to emergencies, and making the 911 process more efficient and cost effective.
“Paramedics no longer wait in the hallway with patients who are well enough to sit on their own,” Peel Region said in a press release.
In 2022, the Mississauga and Credit Valley hospitals also joined the program.
“Fit2Sit has been working in other paramedic services for many years,” Wilton said, noting Niagara was the first Ontario municipality to try it.
“It works and is currently in use across most Ontario paramedic services, although some use different names for the program,” he said. “After triage in hospital, paramedics are often left watching over patients until a hospital bed is ready. This is an inefficient use of paramedic resources and although it makes emergency departments in the hospital safer, it puts the entire community at risk, especially with low-acuity patients who can be safely monitored in waiting rooms and/or ED clinics.
“Paramedics need to be in the community to respond to life-threatening emergencies, not in hospital hallways,” Wilton said. “Positive patient outcomes are dependent on paramedics being available where they are strategically placed throughout communities. The chain of survival is also dependent on paramedic availability.”