10/28/2025
PARAMEDIC FUNDING BOOST BRINGS ‘WELCOME RELIEF’ SAYS T-BAY EMS CHIEF
THUNDER BAY — The chief of Superior North EMS says a recent funding top-up from the province will help improve service, including throughout the region.
The land ambulance service received an increase of just under $1 million over last year, Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland announced on Oct. 9. That represents a 4 per cent increase, provincial officials added.
Superior North EMS chief Shane Muir said he welcomed the funding, as “the district is under some strain.”
“We have a large operational base, we have many stations spread out throughout the district,” Muir said.
“Each one of those stations requires ambulance replacements, stretcher replacements, defibrillator replacements, and where this funding is really going go is … medical pieces of equipment are exponentially rising in cost, so the province is able to come to the table, support us a little bit with some of those costs.”
Muir said that lightens the load on Thunder Bay and district municipal tax bases “and really helps us get that new equipment in place that we desperately need.”
“With Thunder Bay serving as the hub for many surrounding communities across a vast region, this investment will ensure that our paramedics and frontline staff have the resources they need to respond quickly and effectively in times of crisis,” Holland was quoted as saying in a media release.
Another separate pot of just over $226,000 has also been committed to the dedicated offload nurses program to “hire more nurses and other eligible health professionals dedicated to offloading ambulance patients in hospital emergency departments,” the release said.
Muir said that’s continued funding as carryover from last year, where medical professionals are stationed at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s emergency department to “take over patient care when an ambulance comes in.”
The paramedics then “can get back out onto the road by offloading that patient onto the dedicated offload nurse, and then they can get back into service and respond to the 911 calls that are waiting in the community,” Muir said.
The province says it now provides just over $19.8 million to Superior North EMS.
Muir said he’s pleased.
“It's going to give some welcome relief to the increasing costs that come with equipment, with vehicles and with general wage increases and things like that,” he said.
“So, it's a really big help to our system and to our paramedics.”
