As a result of how Canada's universal healthcare system is set up, hospital in-patient beds and Emergency Departments tend to be severely overcrowded, resulting in difficulties for paramedics transferring the care of their patients to hospital staff in a timely manner. Two- to four-hour delays in the transfer of care are commonplace, and six- to eight-hour delays are not unheard of. When this occurs, the service's ability to provide service to emergency calls in a timely manner will often degrade, because of decreased unit availability. Multiple stakeholders and various levels of government are currently seeking solutions to this problem, but have, so far, experienced only limited success.