GLENBURNIE — A volunteer firefighter is to fill in as an ambulance driver on Wolfe Island when only one paramedic is on duty.
In a closed session Wednesday, Frontenac County council decided to mount a six-month pilot project that would add a firefighter to the ambulance to allow it to transport patients to hospital from the island.
The six-month pilot project was described as a short-term solution to staffing challenges at the Wolfe Island station.
“This is about in those circumstances of one to two per cent of the time, when it is critical to get the patient, I don’t really care who drives that ambulance,” said Frontenac Paramedic Services chief Paul Charbonneau. “The patient is the most important thing.
“This is not a wholesale — every time the ambulance is called out on the island we will have a firefighter drive. It will be that one or two per cent, if it happens.”
Earlier this month, several island residents complained that having one paramedic on duty at the island station, a situation that is to be the case about half of the time this summer, put them in jeopardy.
The situation was highlighted when a teen suffered an allergic reaction and a single paramedic responded but could not transport the youth to hospital. An ambulance was dispatched from Kingston to transport the patient.
Charbonneau said while the single-paramedic first response model is an accepted way to respond to medical emergencies, allowing a volunteer firefighter to drive an ambulance in the most serious calls when a patient must get to hospital is a way to solve the current staffing shortage on the island.
When a single paramedic responds to a call on the island, they are to assess the patient to determine if they need immediate transport to hospital.
The paramedic would then ask for a member of the fire department, which according to emergency response agreements would also respond to the call, to drive the ambulance.
“The firefighters are already trained to drive large vehicles, their pumpers and rescue trucks are bigger than our ambulances,” Charbonneau said. “It’s going to be a simple orientation.”
“But we all know that the current paramedic service is based on bringing the emergency room to the patient,” added Frontenac Islands Mayor Denis Doyle. “There is a small percentage of the calls that it is critical to get the patient to the hospital. What this does is allow our firefighters to drive the ambulance vehicles and help load the patient.”
Since transitioning from the volunteer paramedic service around 2015, FPS has committed to having the Wolfe Island ambulance staffed for eight hours a day and on standby for the remaining 16 hours. It’s a staffing solution not seen at any other FPS station.
The paramedic service has relied on a core group of about 18 part-time paramedics to staff the station. But some of those part time staff have been hired for summer contracts elsewhere in FPS and finding staff to fill the gaps has been a challenge, Charbonneau said.
“We are trying to do the best we can to do a short-term solution and do a long-term solution,” said Charbonneau.
“To be perfectly frank, we should have hired in the spring,” Charbonneau said, adding that additional hiring was scheduled for later this fall.
Charbonneau said he expects to have a solution to the Wolfe Island issue ready by mid-September.
“I need the time to work with the union,” he said.
Charbonneau was hearing from the paramedics union a lot on Wednesday when word of the pilot project came out.
Shauna Dunn, the president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 462, which represents FPS paramedics, criticized the project as an effort to have firefighters take over the work currently done by paramedics.
“Paramedics in Ontario have been contending with ... attempts to encroach on our work for some time, but to have our own employer seemingly propose something that permits firefighters to do the work of a paramedic is especially concerning,” Dunn wrote in an email to the Whig-Standard.
The Ontario Professional Firefighters’ Association has a campaign promoting an expanded role for firefighters in emergency medical care, something paramedics are opposed to.
“We will wait to have all of the information before passing judgment on this proposal, but suffice to say that OPSEU Local 462 is not in favour of firefighters (or anyone else) doing our bargaining unit work, except under the most extraordinary of circumstances, such as large scale disaster emergencies,” Dunn wrote.
Charbonneau is to meet with union representatives next week to discuss the details of the pilot project.
Link to original article in The Whig.com: Project would allow firefighter to drive ambulance on island