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Province connecting more people to faster emergency care with $36 million investment

October 2, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Ontario government is investing over $36 million in Simcoe County to connect more people to emergency care faster and increase the availability of paramedics and ambulances in communities.

“This significant provincial investment will allow for faster access to life-saving emergency care when every second matters,” said Brian Saunderson, MPP for Simcoe-Grey. “By supporting our paramedics, adding more offload nurses, and ensuring ambulances are available in our communities, we are strengthening our local health-care system and improving outcomes for patients and their families.”

In Simcoe County, the provincial government is increasing land ambulance funding by 10 per cent, bringing the province’s total investment in the region to $34,502,178 this year.

This increase in base funding helps ensure municipalities address increased costs so they can continue to deliver high-quality emergency care. This investment is part of the almost $1 billion in land ambulance funding Ontario is providing municipalities across the province this year, representing an average increase of 8.7 per cent from 2024.

In addition, to further reduce delays paramedics encounter when dropping patients off at a hospital, Ontario is investing $800,000 in Simcoe County through the Dedicated Offload Nurses Program to hire more nurses and other eligible health professionals dedicated to offloading ambulance patients in hospital emergency departments.

The program allows paramedics to get back out into the community faster and respond to their next 9-1-1 call sooner, and has played a significant role in reducing ambulance offload times and increasing ambulance availability for 9-1-1 patients across the province. As a result of this investment and the dedication of healthcare professionals, provincial ambulance offload time has been reduced by approximately 65 per cent since its peak in October 2022.

To ensure urgent patients receive critical care sooner, Ontario is also continuing to implement the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) across the province. The system helps to better prioritize and triage emergency medical calls and dispatch paramedics sooner.

The province has expanded the use of MPDS to Mississauga, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Renfrew, Georgian, Kingston, Lindsay, Oshawa, and Timmins, and is accelerating progress to implement the system at the 10 remaining Central Ambulance Communication Centres across Ontario over a year ahead of schedule. 

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