Amalgamation

[tomh009]

That's a good point about bush pilots, that's why I was surprised about airline pilots, but I didn't think there were all that many bush pilots anymore, and flying even smaller planes is still pretty safe.

I personally know of two individuals flying small planes to remote destinations. There are still a lot of places up north that have no or very poor road connections.

[jamincan]

Bush flying is still very much a thing, and relatively dangerous. It's also quite a bit more wild-westy than you normally encounter in this era, so it's not surprising that the consequences are far higher too.

Fire fighters are now lobbying to do more medical procedures - the logic being that they're often the first responder and they could save lives by providing an intervention sooner.

[danbrotherston]

@jaminican.

Cool.

Yeah. Maybe they don't need giant transport sized trucks for that eh?

[ijmorlan]

@jaminican.

Cool.

Yeah. Maybe they don't need giant transport sized trucks for that eh?

Also, why are they the first responder? Because they have nothing to do and there aren’t enough ambulances.

[KevinL]

We seem to be swinging back to reasons to fold EMS into Fire...

[nms]

Emergency services in general are staffed with the expectation that most of their work day is unplanned. If we had a time machine to look forward and predict how many staff might be needed on a given day, then staffing could be adjusted accordingly. Unfortunately, emergency services can't operate the same way as retail store trying to adjust for Black Friday sales.

The reason that a large fire truck shows up for a small call is in case the large truck is needed at a call immediately afterwards. For the same reason, whenever the fire truck is taken for a test drive or to fuel up, the whole crew comes along just in case.

I'm not sure that merging EMS and Fire Services together would save much money as the two work forces would have to be kept in their separate streams in terms of training, equipment and availability, not to mention funding sources. My guess is the a lot of EMS funding is tied to provincial funding while fire funding is likely more tied to municipal funding. It wouldn't do to have fire services personnel tied up waiting to offload a patient at the hospital when a call goes out for a fire or accident clean-up.

[Rainrider22]

The fire department needs to justify their budget and salary. They do this through tierd response. It increases their call for service numbers for the year. If they weren't responding to medical calls, the number of calls for service would be dramatically reduced. The reality is we shouldn't be sending huge trucks with 4 to 5 people on board for a medical call. And, if there is any safety concern, they stage and wait for the police so there is no medical advantage to the victim because by then the EMS are on scene. The reality is we should have more EMS,not firefighters. This would be a dramtic change in business which the firefighters have no appetite for. Nor to the cities because the fire department is the one major service they provide that the region doesn't. It gives them identity. There are many more factors as well but I don't have enough time

[KevinL]

Nor to the cities because the fire department is the one major service they provide that the region doesn't.

Well, if we upload Fire to the Region then that argument goes away, and hopefully the EMS workload can be rationalized.

[Pheidippides]

Maybe the fire fighters can wait with the patients waiting to be offloaded at the hospitals while the paramedics head back out to their next call.

[Rainrider22]

Maybe the fire fighters can wait with the patients waiting to be offloaded at the hospitals while the paramedics head back out to their next call.

You are bang on !!!

[plam]

Maybe the fire fighters can wait with the patients waiting to be offloaded at the hospitals while the paramedics head back out to their next call.

You are bang on !!!

I think it's tricky to hand off responsibility for a patient to someone who is less qualified. You'd think that the fact that they are in a hospital should change something.

[Rainrider22]

You are bang on !!!

I think it's tricky to hand off responsibility for a patient to someone who is less qualified. You'd think that the fact that they are in a hospital should change something.

we were being sarcastic ...  The ems paramedics are the qualified people to do the hand off.  The bad part is it takes so long for them to do the hand off in the hospital..

[Spokes]

Which brings up a whole new issue

[Pheidippides]

A big part of the problem is the under the current legislation (Ambulance Act?) is that ambulances cannot transport a patient somewhere other than a hospital even when under circumstances where a more appropriate level of care could be provided. So, if you stub your toe and call and ambulance, 1) they have to send and ambulance (a whole other problem), 2) if they transport you it has to be to a hospital (not to a walk-in clinic, not to your family health team, not to a doctor's office, etc.). Then of course a stub toe is going to be the least priority for the hospital and the ambulance crew gets hung up there waiting.

I believe legislative changes were under way under the previous government, but that work has halted with the election.

There are offload nurse dedicated to do the hand-off at each hospital, but that has either been swamped by demand or doesn't seem to be as effective as intended (other bottlenecks at the hospital like no beds available on admit floors, or offload nurse being used to cover other shortages at the hospital).

[Coke6pk]

Specifically comparing fire services, EMS, and policing, I believe fire fighters are the only ones who have 24-hour shifts. All other emergency services typically do 12-hour shifts as far as I know. While fire response is important, fire-related calls are probably the least frequent of all three services. The fact that fire services are so often idle means we are often falling back on them to respond to medical calls because EMS is so over-worked. The whole situation seems backward to me; we should be spending more to improve EMS and finding ways to reduce cost for fire services.

There are very few jobs where you get paid to sleep.

Our paramedics are underpaid and understaffed.  Money from the fire dept should go towards them.

If a police officer or paramedic was photographed sleeping on duty, working out on duty, grocery shopping on duty, it would fail the "Globe and Mail" test.  A firefighter doing the same this is commonplace, and society accepts this.  This is where the problem lies.

I don't pay my doctor for his down time, but he will likely save my life before a firefighter does.

Coke