Saskatoon's ambulance system swamped with calls

An unexpectedly high volume of traffic hadSaskatoon's ambulance system scrambling.

Since Tuesday morning, MD Ambulance has been running at a level 0. That means there are no ambulances available to respond.

From 6 a.m. CST Tuesday morning to 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, paramedics have responded to 54 emergency calls. Normally, the ambulance company only sees that number of calls after 12 hours.

The heavy volume of calls lasted until 2 a.m. Wednesday morning.

"Our paramedics have hit their maximum capacity," said Gerry Schriemer, chief of EMS for MD Ambulance. "High priority calls are our primary focus until our resources can catch up to the lower severity calls that are waiting."

Any inter-hospital transfers will see significant delays as all available ambulances are needed for emergency calls.

MD Ambulance has called in all additional staff and has asked for help for partnering services in rural areas.