Grey County will move forward with the purchase of several ambulances from a single source, because there is only one approved manufacturer in Ontario.
Director of Paramedic Services Kevin McNab noted to council’s Committee of the Whole Thursday, the Ministry of Health regulates who the approved vendors are. For years, there were two, Demers and Crestline, but they merged in 2018.
A staff report says, since the merger and supply chain disruption, Grey County has seen the price of ambulances increase by $118,800 or 67 per cent which represents an annualized increase of 10.82 per cent over 5 years.
Chatsworth Mayor and County Councillor Scott Mackey asked staff about talks with the province on the single source issue and what kind of response they received, noting, “Because this is a huge problem for the entire province.”
County Chief Administrative Officer Kim Wingrove explained, “We have delegated at AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario Conference) at least twice on this matter. We asked them to consider establishing a vendor of record, at least for a floor price for all of the services.”
She added, “Right now we are all, every one of us competing for that one resource,” explaining they asked the province to establish a vendor of record to establish a price municipalities and counties can all use to plan effectively, or approve some competition in the marketplace.
Wingrove said, “The fact that Demers and Crestline were able to merge without some sort of a competition concern, is concerning. We did not get any confirmation or any response back from the ministry that they might be taking action on this…that may well be happening behind the scenes, but it’s not something that’s been communicated to us,” said Wingrove.
Meanwhile, delivery times for ambulance orders are up to approximately 24 months. This has caused the 2023 order to be delayed. The County is ordering other amubulances schedluled for replacement ahead of time becasue it can now take up to 24 months for them to arrive.
It has also been the case that in between the time of the county placing the order for an ambulance, and its arrival, the price increased by $5,000 as in 2022 when the ambulances ordered in at $239,302 were delivered in 2023 for a cost of $245,697 before tax. Staff say that’s because Demers, Braun Crestline maintains the right to increase the price based on external factors such as the industrial product price Index,
A total of 11 ambulances are set to be ordered to cover off 2023, 2024 and 2025.
