The Lanark County Paramedic Service responded to 3,458 calls for service in the first quarter of 2025.
That’s a 27% jump from the same time last year within Lanark County.
What’s down by 33% is calls outside the county, which Chief Travis Mellema said is thanks to the new dispatch system.
The Medical Priority Dispatch system was something Mellema had long championed, calling it the “gold standard.”
Factoring in the decreased out of jurisdiction calls, the overall call increase in the first quarter of 2025 is 17%.
Mellema said there were no real surprises as to what the top three calls have been so far, one was simply defined differently.
One concern the Chief has is around the community paramedicine program.
He said they they receive about 15 referrals each month for the community paramedicine program and they’re running out of resources.
The LCPS had 1,260 interventions related to the program in the first quarter of 2025 alone.
Story by Grant Deme