SPC weighs options for emergency services staffing models
By Lethbridge Herald on May 17, 2022.
Justin Seward
Lethbridge Herald
Lethbridge’s chief of fire and EMS, Greg Adair, came before the Community Safety Standing Policy Committee on Thursday to present options for an operational staffing model for emergency services.
Challenges that are being faced include a 20 per cent increase in long distance transfers, a 58 per cent increase in responding to emergencies outside of Lethbridge, 47 per cent increase to EMS call volumes, the relocation of ambulances outside of Lethbridge to cover other communities, the loss of situational awareness of the ambulance due to the loss of EMS dispatch, and no additional ambulances in the system since 2015.
The SPC voted unanimously to recommend that council support hiring and training the additional eight firefighters in 2022, using the BAU 660-242 at $884,600, and recognizing ongoing mitigating efforts to reduce any future impact on the taxes for the 2023-2026 operating budget.
“All of these changes, as you can see here, has equated that our EMS resources are no longer available to aid in fire suppression,” said Adair.
“When we entered into our EMS contract back in 2009 and again in 2014, our contract allowed for our EMS resources to aid in fire suppression. But with all the changes that we talked about here, are no longer available. We’re unable to respond with an effective response for us from a fire perspective.”
Administration looked over four options to see what the best path forward would be to overcome challenges.
Option A was a Parallel Service-Base Case which would provide fire/rescue the resources to respond to medical emergencies in a safe and effective manner.
“LFES continues to transition from three-person to four-person fire apparatus as previously directed by council. This transition started in 2021 to ensure LFES has a standard deployment of 24 firefighters on each platoon,” reads a statement in the presentation report.
There would be a net increase of 21 firefighters on top of current staffing levels.
“What we’re looking for here is for council to support continuing with a parallel EMS service going forward,” said Adair.
This would require LFES to hire eight additional staff in the fall of 2022, said Adair.
The funding would come through BAU 660-442, totalling $884,600, to pay for wages and training. LFES would incur ongoing costs of approximately $1-1.3 million per year. The remaining 13 positions wouldn’t be hired until 2023-2025.
The total cost would be $3.4 million by 2026 with no additional tax pressure.
Segregated services in Option B would see LFES staffing while running both EMS and fire/rescue as separate services.
“LFES no longer relies on cross-trained paramedics as supplemental firefighters, though the City continues delivery of EMS services under contract with AHS. This option requires, at minimum, the same number of firefighters but potentially more than Option A (21 additional staff), and assumes cross-training of staff would no longer be required,” as read in the agenda.
The additional staff would cost $3.4 million.
Option C would see LFES go to a fire-only service where the city would provide fire/rescue response, but not EMS. As result, paramedic training would no longer be required for firefighters, cost and revenues would be removed for EMS and a reduced level of EMS service could be provided if LFES doesn’t provide it.
Furthermore, there would be a decrease of 33 paramedics and an increase of $725,000 annually, not including medical first response.
“We would need an additional 21 firefighters to ensure that we have the effective fire response,” said Adair.
The last option would be to stay status quo.
“Well, the challenges that we’re trying to overcome, because EMS resources are not available anymore like they have been in the past, is we don’t have an adequate effective fire response force to ensure that we could respond to fire events safely and effectively,” said Adair.
“From that, we’re also struggling to ensure that we can meet the services level put forward by council due to staffing challenges. Currently, we have to occasionally shut down ambulances and fire stations due to lack of staffing.
“If we’re to continue down the status quo model, it would be a piece that would have to come back to council and look for direction on what service level change they would like to achieve.”
Administration suggests going with Parallel Service-Base Case which would not create an increase in taxes.
Committee member John Middleton-Hope agreed funding the additional staff through the BAU accounts in the first option would benefit in 2022, but does not address the next 30 years and redirected to Adair to further explain.
“As we went away from our last meeting with this group, we thought how we can get more creative to try not to create a tax pressure on our citizens,” said Adair.
“So what we looked at is we went back and looked at our operating budget and we thought is there any way that we can absorb the ongoing costs of these eight individuals into our current operating budget? And what we are doing is we are looking at to do that and that’s what we are doing today, is that ongoing funding will actually come out of our operating budget.”
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When EMS is dispatched to overdoses in this city, most of the time there is a fire unit dispatched to assist, especially in areas with high concentrations of addicts such as the Alpha House Shelter.
Lethbridge EMS is disptached multiple times everyday to attend calls of overdoses in this city, yet for some reason stats only show a few times. Maybe it is because when they arrive, after Narcan/Naloxone is administered, addicts refuse any further treatment so they do not make the stats.
I would take a guess that during the day, when it is close to the end of the month or the middle, when many addicts get their cheques, there can be as high as 30-40 calls per day, tying up valuable resources that are needed.
So, why are we not dispatching a paramedic in a SUV with a person trained in overdoses, who doesn’t need the full trauma/paramedic training? We are tying up valuable resources and from what I have heard and seen, over 95% of addicts refuse any further treatment or require it.
We really need to stop this waste of resources!
The other issue – EMS often treats the same person or has to respond to that person several times in day for overdosing. Why are we not putting legislation in place that would demand any overdose patients to be put in a mandatory 48 hour medical watch in a facility that has trained/certified with proper credentials, addiction counsellors who try to counsel these addicts to take treatment.
Harm reduction has it backwards! They think that suppling people with all the paraphernalia and a place to do their drugs opens up the line for treatment, but an addict only wants to get their ‘fix’ or their drugs into their bodies when they go to these sites or go to get more paraphernalia to restock their supplies so they can do more drugs, they have one thing in mind – – GET HIGH! They don’t want to listen to someone at that point trying to ‘counsel’ them to get treatment!
Many will be careful not to overdose, while others will be off the streets so there will not be another call to treat them again, taking away valuable resources.
They are at their lowest when they overdose and there is a better chance to get through to them! Contrary to the statement “you can’t force an addict to be treated”, you can and it HAS been proven by successful programs in the US with stats of over 84% success shown, but many want to follow the failed system they have in BC, called harm reduction, which has killed thousands of people in its failure. Or maybe it is some sick plan to control the population? After 18 years and the massive increase in all numbers of fatal overdoses/number of addicts/homeless/crime/costs any intelligent person that wanted change would see it isn’t working!
There are some days that I have noticed that there are constant sirens and most are responding to overdoses, which for some reason are not in the stats, but occur when bad batches of drugs hit the streets for when addicts get their cheques from Alberta social services/AISH, Treaty payments or other forms.
We can do better! These are our streets and city and we do have a say what we want to see on our streets! Maybe we will have to hit the streets again as we did to shut down the SCS and demand change now!
The other thing is to get rid of Kenney and his destruction of our EMS system by centralizing it and stealing all our ambulances, scattering them all over southern Alberta. He doesn’t understand logistics and the time lost moving resources around on our highways. Bean counters do not consider human life and have no knowledge on the logistics. How many thousand hours per month are there of EMS units running down highways empty or stuck outside ER’s waiting to get their patient’s in are there? How much money is lost in this and the wear and tear on the ambulances, miling them out faster? More importantly, how many lives have been lost with this costly system that was supposed to save $6 million! It has cost much more in costs that were not considered and destroyed many lives!
One EMS can respond to dozens of calls in the time it takes to drive to Calgary and back again. Even if they respond to calls in Calgary while their, they still need to drive back to Lethbridge.
The only thing I can see is he wants our EMS system to fail so he can bring in a private system, probably already operated by one of his corporate pals in Ontario!
The old ‘create a crisis’ to push your agenda!