Chief of Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Services Doug Socha, August 9, 2017 (Photo: Mary Thomas/Quinte News)
Hastings-Quinte Emergency Services Committee is joining the fight against a provincial government pilot project that would increase firefighter response to medical calls.
The province is proposing to fund two pilot projects to enable firefighters certified as paramedics to respond to low level acuity calls to treat and release or treat and refer patients.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Chief of Paramedic Services Doug Socha said firefighters now respond to life-saving emergency calls.
He says “Right now what happens is if there’s a patient that’s unconscious, if they’re in cardiac arrest or if they’ve stopped breathing, these are the types of calls at which municipalities can choose to send their fire departments on. We’ve got a medical pr0tocol on those types of calls, whether you’re a firefighter or paramedic, whether you’re a lifeguard or whether you’re a police officer. For those specific calls we want to get somebody there in a first response capacity to immediately provide some lifesaving skills whether it’s with an AED to ventilate a patient to help them breathe. Those are the calls that we want to have a first-responder get to.”
He says there is “no evidence that supports” having firefighters at every call.
Hastings County CAO Jim Pine say it would mean a big hike in municipal property taxes.
Socha and Pine have written to the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care setting out the concerns.
The committee voted to not support or take part in the pilot projects.
