Ambulances backed up outside of Lakeland Regional’s ER could be seen multiple times earlier this week.
“Usually, the problem is in late afternoons. Our system picks up right around noon and it’ll extend to about 8’clock and that’s when you see our system critically stretched at that time,” said Robert Weech, Polk County Fire Rescue Chief.
In an update to County Commissioners, Weech said ambulances are having to wait longer to transfer patients to hospitals due to an increase in 911 calls.
Polk County’s EMS division went from 280 calls a day to now an average of 340 calls per day. But Weech said there have been no significant delays in response time.
“There are pockets that have one or 2 minutes additional response time. There are also a couple of pockets experiencing more than that. Up to 4 minutes additional response time,” said Weech.
“Certainly, if you have an emergency, stroke, heart attack, accident, fire at your house, certainly call 911. We don’t want to deter that, but if you have other ways of getting the medical care you need to exhaust those at this time,” Weech said.
That way, EMS can deal with other emergencies during this critical time.