Town in Prince Edward Island wants fire department included in 911 services

Canada’s smallest province is in the midst of a big fight over the provision of 911 service. On one side is a community that wants its firefighters to handle emergencies, while on the other, is the provincial government that wants equal treatment for everyone. The town of North Rustico, P.E.I. is seeking to go back to the future by returning to the previous system where all emergency calls were routed through the local fire department. Under the current system, established in May 2000, all emergency calls are now transferred to Neils Ambulance in Charlottetown. The president of the fire department, Kenny Sampson, tells Network Letter the ambulance company does notify it when someone phones, but it can be 12 or 13 minutes after the initial report. "We want dispatch within one minute of the call being transferred to Neils," he explains. "And secondly, if somebody calls up and requests only the fire department for medical , we don’t want the ambulance dispatched." The community has rallied around the cause. At a town meeting on Jan. 14, 60 people unanimously endorsed a proposal to establish a separate emergency number for the fire department. Another 700 people have signed a petition promoting the idea. The organizers are hoping for a resolution by Feb. 15 and a further meeting with the province was scheduled for late last week. But the provincial government has cautioned the community that it would not be responsible for anything that happens as a result of the second number. Sampson says he expected that sort of a reaction. The public servant in charge of the system offers a different slant on the quandary. "It comes down to the perception of what 911 in this province is or isn’t," states Larry Avery, acting 911 provincial coordinator for the Community and Cultural Affairs ministry. "911 was set up to replace a myriad of emergency numbers for fire, police, and ambulance across the province with one number. So that the person, whatever the emergency, could call one number and have assurance that they would be put in contact with what’s termed an appropriate emergency service provider." He worries that sending firefighters to an emergency where their capabilities may not be appropriate could open up a can of worms. Questions could be raised about who sent the fire department and why. Avery has been urging the residents of North Rustico to lobby the department of health and social services for improved ambulance service. " two different levels of qualifications, training, equipment, legislation, authorization, and regulation," he notes. "The ambulance operators are fully regulated; the fire departments to this point in time are not. But that whole question is being reviewed right now."Indepth study needed Sampson maintains his group is just trying to make life easier for all concerned by taking some of the load off the ambulance service. He cites the example of someone being injured at the local arena. A broken arm can be mended with a splint and a sling on site rather than a trip to the hospital. The firefighters would still have the option of calling medical personnel in the event of a more serious ailment. Avery is sympathetic to the goals of North Rustico, but he warns that any type of upgrade to the system will require in-depth study. "There’s all sorts of things that we’d like to see in the province. A centralized dispatch for fire and ambulance would be wonderful," he asserts. "But that requires a lot of preplanning, identification of partners, stakeholders, funding, a plan of implementation, to what degree of dispatch are we talking about: page-out only or constant contact in-house. So those are all the things that, certainly no one’s discounting, but we’re a small province and you just can’t simply say ‘well now we’re going to do central dispatching tomorrow’."

Town in Prince Edward Island wants fire department included in 911 services

News | January 29, 2002

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