New 911-dispatch system keeps New Brunswick firefighters off medical calls
MONCTON –
Fire Chief Greg Partridge has been with Dorchester Fire and Rescue for almost five decades, he has seen it all including the importance of getting first responders on the scene as quickly as possible.
“We’ve made a difference in many lifetimes in the time we’ve been here,” he said. “As soon as you arrive here, you can see the relief on people’s faces that someone is there to do something.”
He says the department receives an average of 50 to 60 calls a year, with 70 percent of the calls being medical since medical calls were added 20 years ago. An ambulance is also dispatched from Sackville, NB for emergencies
“15 to 20 minutes on a good day. We’ve had times where it’s been over an hour,” Partridge said. “They’ve advanced from Norton to Dorchester, I think, and there are two ambulances in Sackville, but one is just for transport and the other is usually at the hospital waiting to be unloaded.”
However, he says first responders from the fire service can be on the scene within three to four minutes — at least they could be if dispatched. But a new system rolled out across the province in January keeps firefighters in the dark and residents waiting.
“As of January 9, 2023, we were being sent to emergency medical calls in two ways,” said Robin True, Riverview Fire and Rescue Chief.
“When the call came through to 911, the PSAP operator used a list of keywords to identify calls we should be routed to. Otherwise, if they couldn’t identify a call using those keywords, it would go to the medic center.”
True says the medic center would then call the fire department and send in a crew — a safety net that no longer exists.
“We’ve seen that over the period from January 9th to January 25th, when we were notified, our call volume for medical calls dropped by about one call per day,” he said.
“Last year we responded to 1,121 medical calls out of the approximately 1,450 calls we had. Therefore, medical first aid is a big part of our work. Our firefighters take great pride in providing medical care to residents so this is a very important concern to us.”
Both fire departments say there has been no communication about the changes, only that calls have suddenly dropped at each station.
“That’s really absurd,” said Partridge. “We’re doing a service here and nobody was told what this new system was going to be. Did it come in because it wanted to save money? Or did it come in because it was supposed to improve the system? [The] The problem is that it doesn’t work either way.”
At the moment it’s unclear how much this has affected the entire province or how many fire departments have been affected, but officials say the New Brunswick Association of Fire Chiefs is investigating.
“I think the biggest concern overall is the lack of a primary medical care system that’s consistent and professional,” True said, noting that Nova Scotia has a very reliable shipping system.
“Obviously, I hope that there will be gentle pressure on the province and Medavie Health Services to work with us to find a solution,” he said. “We’re certainly willing and able to respond to emergency medical calls, so we’re just looking for a dispatch system that can do that.”
In a statement to CTV News, Director of Ambulance New Brunswick’s Medical Communications Management Center, Michel Gravel, said in part that “Ambulance New Brunswick (ANB) has never had a mandate to notify or dispatch fire departments.”
Adding: “ANB has always been able to call for help from the fire service when needed; However, the previous system also allowed fire services to listen to ANB calls broadcast over the radio system and decide at their discretion to join specific calls. With the new system, fire departments are only notified when ANB requests their assistance for emergency calls.”
But True says that’s up to each individual paramedic and isn’t consistent.
“The concern now is that without this system, calls could fall through the cracks,” he said.
Partridge knows what can happen if this isn’t fixed quickly.
“It’s probably 10 years now that we never got the call, at a local restaurant a few minutes walk from our fire station, we were actually here at the time, never been called, choking victims, they were dying,” he said he.
“This needs to be corrected sooner rather than later, like yesterday, because it’s only going to get worse.”
