As well, what came from the memo re: needing more detail to determine if the beefed up on-call ambulance provisions will benefit the area? Council has directed staff to request a meeting with BC Emergency Health Services to obtain information on the specific local impacts of the transition to the Standby On Call Model.
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The proposed BC ambulance staffing changes could prove detrimental to the residents,
warns the local fire chief.
Robert Krause, the director of protective
services and local fire chief for the village of
Burns Lake, expressed his concern over the
proposed staffing changes in BC Ambulance,
during a council meeting.
“With the new “Scheduled On-Call” (SOC)
system that has been proposed for Burns Lake,
the community will gain three SOC positions,
however this will actually result in a reduction
of service. For eight hours of each 24-hour
shift there will be two paramedics in station.
For the remaining 16 hours these Paramedics
will be on pager within a “reasonable response
time”. We have been advised that a Paramedic living 10 minutes from the station will be
allowed to be at home on standby for the 16-
hour portion of their shift. This will result
in dispatch time increasing from 90 seconds
under the current model, to potentially 12-15
minutes,” he said.
The new staffing model refers to a new type
of paramedic shift that has regularly scheduled
on-call hours as opposed to waiting for availability of on-call paramedics. SOC paramedics
will be paramedics with regular shifts and will
receive full wages.
According to BCEHS, these changes will improve emergency response coverage and create
a more stable paramedic workforce especially
in the remote, rural areas where workforce
retention has historically been a problem.
However, Krause disagreed with BCEHS’
hypothesis and said that the new SOC positions
will not help with the shortfall of paramedics
as most, if not all, of the positions will be filled
with current part-time paramedics, already
working in Burns Lake. Without additional
fulltime SOC positions, Burns Lake will continue to suffer from a shortage of paramedics
to cover all required shifts.
In previous years Burns Lake benefited from
an ambulance station that was manned with
a minimum of two paramedics, around the
clock, resulting in an approximate dispatch
time of 90 seconds. Under current staffing
shortages Burns Lake only has 65 per cent of
the required staffing and has been without a
Unit Chief for over six months.
“With the lack of paramedic staffing in Burns
Lake, the Volunteer Fire Department has seen
a 10 per cent increase in medical calls for the
first six months of 2021. Given the additional
time delays for 16 hours of each day under the
proposed SOC system it is easy to assume that
this trend will continue or possibly get worse.
This puts a strain on the municipal resources
and forces volunteers
to leave work and family in order to provide
an acceptable level of
service to the community,” he added.
Changes to the delivery system will have
consequences for our
community that will
result in reduced service and slower response time, warned
Krause.
The village staff will
now be preparing a report on what the impact of SOC system
for BC Ambulance
would have on the
emergency service response times and what
impact it would have
on the village’s volunteer fire department.
The report would
then be presented to
the council for review
and the next steps would be determined accordingly.
