Toronto needs to partner with three other regions to shore up its available paramedics for the FIFA World Cup, as the predicted influx of visitors will put pressure on emergency services, according to recommendations made to the city by officials
“Toronto is expected to welcome more than 230,000 additional daily visitors during the tournament, which will place increased demand on the medical emergency response system and transportation networks,” stated Bikram Chawla, the chief of Toronto Paramedic Services and Shannon Bollenbach, the Toronto’s executive director of FIFA, in their proposed plan.
If approved by city council, the plan would be executed on 10 “high demand” days between June 11 and July 2, 2026, which is when Toronto is hosting FIFA matches at BMO Field.
Bollenbach and Chawla state Toronto should enter into agreements with nearby Durham, York and Peel Region.
The cost of the proposed coordination with the regions would be $800,000, Bollenbach and Chawla state. They say that figure is within the $7.9 million that has been allocated to the Toronto Paramedic Service operating budget related to FIFA.
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At Toronto City Council on Tuesday, the FIFA World Cup 2026 subcommittee discussed the plan. Melody Jordan, deputy chief of operations for the city, said at the meeting that about 40-50 paramedics will be present in the stadium for each of the six games in Toronto.
In a memo posted to its website Tuesday, Toronto Paramedics Services confirmed that it is developing an “integrated regional response model” with York, Peel and Durham that will send ambulances to respond to calls in Toronto.
Under the model, paramedics in those regions will still receive calls from their respective communications centres, the memo states. Select ambulance resources from the nearby areas will have access to some Toronto Paramedic Services stations that are close to borders with York, Peel and Durham.
With the expected flood of visitors, physicians in Toronto have flagged concerns about the province’s already strained health-care system possibly buckling due to events like FIFA.
Events like the World Cup cause hospital admissions to peak due to trauma, alcohol use and substance-use related incidents, states Dr. Catherine Varner, an emergency medicine physician in Toronto, in a January editorial she authored in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
“The country does not have enough acute care beds or health care personnel to accommodate a surge in demand for acute care capacity,” she states.
City council will vote on the plan to coordinate with the nearby region’s ambulatory services in late May.
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