About Paramedic Services
Woodstock Ambulance Ltd. and Tillsonburg District Memorial Hospital Ambulance were transferred to the County of Oxford on January 1, 2002 to form Oxford County Paramedic Services. Since that time, we have worked to become an innovative provider of pre-hospital medicine employing highly skilled healthcare professionals.
Our achievements include:
- Service-wide deployment of the Autopulse, an automated CPR device)
- Involvement in pre-hospital research studies and developing programs like Community Paramedicine (program that links patients with support services)
- STEMI, stroke and trauma bypass protocols
- Enhanced scope of practice for our paramedics, e.g. intravenous initiation, 12-lead ECG acquisition, CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) and advanced airway management
- Introduction to automatic vehicle locating/GPS
- Electronic patient care record reporting
- Mechanical stretches and loading equipment to reduce Paramedic injuries and patient safety.
Facts:
- Respond to over 10,000 requests for service every year, treating and transporting over 9,000 patients
- We serve a population of over 106,000 and cover over 2,000 square kilometers
- Oxford Paramedic Services employs 52 full time and 26 part time paramedics
- We have a fleet of 16 vehicles including 12 ambulances, three emergency response units and one support unit
- There are seven Paramedic Services stations located across the county
Locations
Base hospital
The Ministry of Health assigns a hospital to provide medical direction, delegation, and advice to the Paramedic service for a specific geographical area.
This is also known as a base hospital. A base hospital provides resources and ensures that ambulance based pre-hospital care and transportation are meeting the needs of the geographical community.
Oxford County's base hospital is the Southwestern Ontario Regional Base Hospital (SWORBH), operating under the leadership of London Health Sciences Centre.
As our base hospital, SWORBH provides us with medical direction, quality assurance, continuing education and medical expertise.