Canmore’s fire department may be capable of advanced life support response in the community, but the number of times it has been used is quite low.
In the first three years of a pilot program offering the extra service beginning in April 2012, the department has made six total advanced life support calls.
In addition to those six there have been 41 additional calls where firefighters who are also trained paramedics responded when there was no ambulance readily available in the community.
Manager of protective services Greg Burt presented year to date and historical statistics for the service to council at its committee of the whole this month.
He said in the first year, which ran April to March 2012-13, for 86 per cent of the time the department was capable of responding with ALS capability. The second year it was 87 per cent of the time and up to September of this year, 68 per cent.
“The cost to operate the service at an advanced life support level was $6,000, so that is the additional cost to run the program,” Burt said. “To run the ALS level is over and above the basic life support level ($10,000 in 2013).”
Canmore has also responded along with Alberta Health Services EMS over the three and a half years. In year one, of 1,137 calls the fire department was dispatched 237 times. In year two, out of 1,282 calls it was dispatched 214 times. From April to September this year it was 151 times out of 757.
Canmore is one of two fire departments providing advanced life support along with basic life support to EMS in the province. It provides far more BLS support overall, but when it does respond when there is no ambulance, whether ALS or BLS, it is on average since April 2012, 10 to 14 minutes before an ambulance arrives.
The reason Canmore council chose the higher level of service was due to the concern that when the Alberta government took over EMS province-wide there would no longer be a policy to keep at least one ambulance within town limits at all times.
“I am really proud of the service we provide in Canmore,” said Councillor Joanna McCallum. “I know at the time it came forward it was contentious, but it has worked out and if you look at the statistics, we have filled the gap.”
Burt said along with Fire Chief Todd Sikorsky and Donald Allan from AHS they will meet in the 2015 to review the final statistics of the service, set to finish its third year of operations, and report back to council for a decision about whether to continue.
“The ongoing communications between AHS and the Town of Canmore is very good; from the operational level it has worked quite well,” he said.
Allen said work over the first few years of having province-wide EMS services has seen it become more effective.
“What we are seeing across the Bow Corridor in general is more efficient use of booking transfers and better response times,” he said. “That has a lot to do with general efficiency and new software programs going into the dispatch centre.”
When asked if the province will compensate Canmore for the added service, Burt said every time the topic comes up, AHS indicates there is no plan to pay the municipality to take ALS or BLS calls.
