London-area paramedics turn old LTC bus into roving COVID test centre
The London-area paramedic service unveiled the latest addition to its fleet Tuesday: a decommissioned London Transit bus turned into a multi-patient unit.
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The London-area paramedic service unveiled the latest addition to its fleet Tuesday: a decommissioned London Transit bus turned into a multi-patient unit.
The new vehicle, retrofitted to meet paramedics’ needs, will boost the service’s capacity when responding to large emergencies, said Adam Bennett, commander for operations with the Middlesex-London Paramedic Service.
“With a regular ambulance, we are only able to accommodate one patient at a time, this will give us the ability to accommodate . . . between 14 and 16 patients at any given moment,” he said. “So in a large-scale event, we’ll be able to bring people into the bus to be triaged and assessed.”
The bus can accommodate two stretchers and has space to treat wheelchair-bound patients.
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Initially, however, the bus will be used to conduct mobile COVID-19 testing in communities across Middlesex County, whose residents now have to travel to London to get tested.
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“This bus will be used to enhance our COVID protocols, and we’ll be able to get out into the communities that have not had access to swabbing, and this is great for residents in the county,” said Middlesex Warden Cathy Burghardt-Jesson.
The idea for the project came from a similar initiative launched this year by the Toronto Paramedic Service, which refitted five decommissioned Toronto Transit Commission buses as part of its response to the virus crisis.
The bus will become operational in the coming weeks.
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