The “link and referral unit” paramedics can take a person to an urgent and primary care centre, a sobering centre, a community health centre or a pharmacy — or an emergency department if needed
When you call 911 for an ambulance in Greater Victoria or Nanaimo, you might get a solo paramedic in a minivan if your medical condition is deemed not urgent.
“Going through a UPCC means that patient is accessing care a lot more quickly than they would otherwise, waiting in the emergency waiting room, and it also then frees up our emergency ambulance resources for the higher-acuity call — so the heart attacks, strokes,” he said. Six Greater Victoria urgent and primary care centres run by Island Health have partnered with the program to accept patients transported by link and referral unit paramedics.
In the months since the paramedics began bringing patients to UPCCs, doctors have been seeing many older patients who likely would have had long waits in emergency departments because their medical concerns wouldn’t be high priority, Edwards said.
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