Extreme staffing crisis results in long EMS response times in Austin

AUSTIN, Texas - It took Austin-Travis County EMS 30 minutes to respond to a patient in a traumatic incident Friday afternoon because there were no ambulances available. 

This information came from the President of the Austin EMS Association who says they were down multiple ambulances Friday due to staffing issues.

"I was just very disturbed," said Selena Xie, President Austin EMS Association.

Xie took to Twitter to share her concern on a recent incident that happened where it took an ambulance longer than expected to get out there and help.

"Somebody was in a really bad construction accident, and they really needed an ambulance quickly, and we weren't even able to get on scene for 30 minutes while this person was waiting," she said.

Xie says the reason goes back to the extreme staffing crisis EMS is facing in the area. Currently, ATCEMS has 530 medics on staff, but they need 664 to run properly.

"We have been shouting from the rooftops that we need more people, and we are starting to see the consequences of not having enough people," said Xie.

Wesley Hopkins, Assistant Chief for Austin Travis County EMS, says the recent surge in calls, mixed with being short-staffed, forces them to have to prioritize calls based on need.

"Going to this call, we got additional calls in the area that were higher priority, so we diverted ambulances to higher priority calls, and this particular incident got a 28-minute response time," said Hopkins.

He says EMS has always diverted ambulances to the highest need incidents first, but does admit response time is not usually 30 minutes long.

"We did have a little longer response time than what we would usually have, but certainly with our staffing shortage, you know, we acknowledge that that does not help," said Hopkins.

EMS has been working with the city to try to negotiate an appropriate pay raise to get more medics onboard.