Essex-Windsor EMS calls surge, overuse straining resources

Large increase in code black situations in Windsor-Essex compared to 2024. CTV Windsor’s Bob Bellacicco explains.

Essex-Windsor EMS is busier than ever responding to over 68,000 urgent and emergency incidents in 2025, a 4.4 per cent increase over the year before.

“In summary, the report reflects a system operating under sustained pressure with demand workforce capacity and infrastructure all contributing to the challenges we continue to navigate,” EMS Chief Justin Lammers told County Council this week. “We remain focused on doing better.”

Windsor Regional Hospital has been navigating those pressures alongside EMS.

“I think as an emergency department and with EMS leadership, we really partner together in regards to decreasing risk for our community,” said Kristen Scott, director of Emergency Services. “Many of these issues are multifactorial, including call volume, bed capacity within the hospital, number of staff, whether it’s EMS availability in our community.

A ‘code black’ occurs when offloading is not possible because the hospital’s emergency department is at full capacity and cannot accept new patients. Paramedics remain with patients potentially leaving no units available to respond to further 911 calls.

Lammers reported that in 2025, 82 per cent of responses were being dispatched as high-priority, lights-and-sirens emergencies, but EMS data shows that in reality, only about 17 per cent of those responses actually required that level of urgency when paramedics arrived on scene.

To that point, the biggest jump came in ‘code 3’ calls, where a patient is transported to hospital without the need of lights or sirens.

“We’re consistently over prioritizing, and it’s creating significant strain on system capacity and working against our ability to meet response time targets,” Lammers told council.

Scott explained it doesn’t matter how you arrive at the hospital, “Whether you arrive via EMS or you walk in, patients, they’re treated by what we call the acuity, so how sick you are versus how maybe not sick you are and that’s how we bring people into the department and how people are treated.”

Despite the increase in calls, EMS is seeing improvements at local hospitals. Paramedics spent a thousand less hours waiting to transfer patients to emergency departments during the first quarter of this year.

“We’ve done a lot together. We’ve done the Fit to Sit program. We’ve opened up capacity within our emergency department to help them when they’re in time and vice versa so I think the partnership is really important,” Scott told CTV News.

Challenges still exist. Code black events increased by 57 per cent compared to 2024. To help improve response times and manage resources, EMS plans to launch a new Medical Priority Dispatch System this fall, along with two Rapid Response Units designed for the region’s most critical emergency calls.

In the meantime, hospital officials remind residents there are community resources outside of the Emergency Department they can rely on.

“Coming to emerg is for emergency services so there’s resources to educate the public on what that looks like,” Scott explained.

Windsor Regional Hospital is encouraging residents to watch this EMS explainer to be better informed on the process of accessing their services.