{"id":184988,"date":"2023-10-05T15:03:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T19:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=184988"},"modified":"2023-10-06T09:25:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T13:25:33","slug":"local-medical-first-responders-are-back-on-call-in-dorchester-and-memramcook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/local-medical-first-responders-are-back-on-call-in-dorchester-and-memramcook\/","title":{"rendered":"Local medical first responders back on call in Dorchester and Memramcook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After nine months, Ambulance New Brunswick has listened to local authorities and will return to the practice of dispatching medical calls to the twelve fire departments in the province trained as medical first responders. Dorchester Fire Department and Memramcook Fire Department are two of those twelve, and the news has been welcomed in both communities.<\/p>\n

Dorchester Fire Chief Greg Partridge says he is \u201cvery happy for our community, very happy for the province,\u201d and is hoping that Ambulance NB makes good on a promise to offer dispatching to other fire departments interested in taking on the responsibility. \u201cI\u2019d like to see it expanded,\u201d says Partridge. \u201cThat would be a plus for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Memramcook Mayor Maxime Bourgeois says he was also happy to receive the news on Wednesday that Ambulance NB would make the change. \u201cWe were putting a lot of pressure, and they were saying that they were working on it,\u201d says Bourgeois, \u201cbut obviously, we were a little bit skeptical about how fast they could resolve this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been about nine months since Ambulance NB stopped medical call dispatching. In March, spokesperson Christianna Williston told CHMA via email that the organization didn\u2019t have the mandate to dispatch to fire departments, and that they had determined doing so was no longer sustainable.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Williston confirmed the return to medical first responders dispatching would take place October 5, and that it would happen \u201cthrough existing resources\u201d. Williston went on to say, \u201cit continues to be a challenging time within our health system, and we deeply appreciate the continued assistance and partnership of local fire departments.\u201c<\/p>\n

Bourgeois says he sees the service as a win-win for both Ambulance NB and local residents. Ambulance NB never fully abandoned local medical dispatching, calling on local departments for the highest acuity calls and when there were excessive delays for ambulance response. \u201cThey were already doing a certain process and sort of analyzing the situation,\u201d says Bourgeois, \u201cso for me to add an extra step to just dispatch the fire department for certain type of calls was sort of a no brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the spring, CHMA spoke with two Memramcook residents<\/a> who shared their stories of local medical first responders. One woman credits the quick arrival of the Memramcook Fire Department with saving her son\u2019s life. Another had to call 911 after the policy change in January, and found herself waiting on the ground outside in winter weather for nearly an hour, wondering where her local firefighters were.<\/p>\n

Bourgeois says the issue has been a major one in Memramcook, one of the biggest since he was elected mayor in 2021. \u201cWe have a really solid fire department, really well trained, well respected in the community,\u201d says Bourgeois, \u201cand the fire department wanted to be called\u2026 The delays for an ambulance can take up to half an hour, 40 minutes. So it was very worrisome that our fire department wasn\u2019t being called.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bourgeois says the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick (UMNB) and L\u2019Association francophone des municipalit\u00e9s du Nouveau-Brunswick (AFMNB) both cooperated to help push for the return of the local dispatching. \u201cIt definitely demonstrated how when we work together things can move along fairly fast,\u201d says Bourgeois.<\/p>\n

Tantramar mayor and UMNB president Andrew Black was also involved in the pressure to restore medical call dispatching, but Black was not available to comment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Neither the Sackville Fire Department nor the Point de Bute Fire Department will see any change with their dispatching, since they are not part of the twelve departments that participate<\/a>. Medical first response requires additional training, about one weekend every two years, says Partridge. And his department in Dorchester has also acquired equipment to help with medical calls. He believes there are other departments in the province that would take on the responsibility, but it is up to each community.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery department is different,\u201d says Partridge. Some have better ambulance response times, he says, and some many not have the capacity for the additional training. For Dorchester, he says, \u201cit doesn\u2019t work not to have first responders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery community has to see their priorities and what training they\u2019re willing to do. But I think it should be offered to every department that wants to do it,\u201d says Partridge. \u201cI think it\u2019s very important.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After nine months, Ambulance New Brunswick has listened to local authorities and will return to the practice of dispatching medical calls to the twelve fire departments in the province trained as medical first responders. Dorchester Fire Department and Memramcook Fire Department are two of those twelve, and the news has been welcomed in both communities.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":146433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,225],"tags":[24266,31127,2512,1675,21871,19524],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185295,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184988\/revisions\/185295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184988"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=184988"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=184988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}