If you have a headache, don’t expect lights and sirens

NEWS — Ever wondered why you see a big red fire truck at an accident, and an ambulance too?

So do some City councillors, who had different opinions at today’s council meeting about whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

A memo from Fire Chief Dale McLean alerted council that the B.C. Ambulance Service has reduced 74 types of calls to not requiring a “lights and sirens” response.

“One of the main drivers behind this change is to ensure the safety of the travelling public while BCAS drivers are responding with lights and siren to incidents,” said McLean’s memo.

“In other words, unnecessary risk to the travelling public may result from emergency vehicles using lights and siren when they are not clinically required.”

It’s up to fire departments to decide whether they’ll do the same as ambulances, said McLean. Seventy-eight percent of municipalities are keeping the status quo.

That prompted a lively debate among council members on the issue of first responders and whether it’s even necessary that both ambulances and firefighters answer calls to accidents or medical emergencies.

Coun. Tina Lange said councillors often hear from the public that sending both is “wasting a lot of money, gas energy, only to get there and then turn around and go away.”

She said when both fire and ambulance answer a call it ties up two resources. “I certainly would like to see the first responder program cut back a bit because I think many times they’re all rushing to the same scene.”

As the city grows, so does traffic, and “if we can reduce the number of times it’s lights and sirens with a massive piece of machinery going down the street that would be a good thing.”

McLean, who attended the meeting to answer questions about his memo, said both fire and ambulance are often needed at a scene. On other occasions, ambulance crews take over from firefighters when they arrive, freeing the firefighters to respond to other calls if need be.

“Our call time is just the time it takes ambulance to get on scene.” When it comes to a timely response to injury, “How do you put a value on that?” he asked.

He said there’s minimal risk to the travelling public during lights and siren calls, but the fire department has removed them from 13 call types and left the rest as they were.

Among the types of calls that won’t be answered “hot” are fainting, breathing problems and headaches.

Coun. Pat Wallace saw things differently than Lange. “I don’t know of anybody around this table who wouldn’t want the fire department to come first, or second — if the ambulance can’t make it I know the fire department will.”

“Perhaps there’s a feeling that we in some way subsidize the ambulance service and I say. ‘Good for us.’”

McLean admitted the changes in lights-and-siren policy “has the potential to be a political hot potato.” He praised B.C. Ambulance for doing “a phenomenal job but they’re doing a lot with a little.”

Coun. Marg Spina wondered, it nothing’s broken, why fix it? “It worries me we’re fiddling with something that’s working well.”

Mayor Peter Milobar said it’s important to assure everyone that only the type of response for some calls is changing, not the responses themselves. “They are still going to respond to 100 percent of the calls they’re getting for an ambulance. There will be help coming if you call for help.”

“You’ve had a couple of hot times at the podium but we love you,” Coun. Arjun Singh assured McLean, who only recently took up his post as chief.