Reply To: A Call For Help

[seasonsgreetings]

This must be a very frustrating situation for you. I can’t speak for the community but I am sure that no-one blames the local ambulance crew for the current state of the ambulance service. I read the articles you mention and I saw them as an attack on the decision-makers, not the paramedics themselves. No-one has ever faulted the level of medical care they have received when attended by the ambulance service, the only criticisisms have been directly about the response time and the lack of coverage – topics that I’m sure everyone is aware is out of your hands.

Similar complaints are being made regarding the Elk Valley Hospital, but it’s about the levels of staffing, not the quality of care provided and certainly not an attack on the wonderful over-stretched staff who work there.

I am horrified at the numbers you quote and I can’t believe with the expansion of the ski resort and the recent boom in mining that your staffing levels have dropped will your call rates have sky-rocketed. Most of the ski resort calls (a huge chunk of your work, I’m sure) would be insurance claims, so there must be money coming in – I can’t understand why it’s not being funneled back to us. I am confused about one part of your post – the third paragraph – you mention that there are two full time vacancies. Why have these not been filled? Is it because BC Ambulance are not accepting applications or because there are no qualified applicants? Do we need more people to train or do we need the funding to be higher? Is it a question or salary, location or politics?

You have asked us to help, write letters and emails to our MLA and your management. I’m sure if I hunted around I could find the email and mail addresses, but we are all busy and if you are asking for help you need to make it easy for us. I asked in a previous forum for the contacts or a petition to sign, and got no response. Your posts, while I’m sure unintentionally, come accross as defensive when you should be trying to rally the community. Please post the contacts we need to write the letters to; start a petition; write a body of text with the pertinent points and accurate facts that people can copy and paste into an email and forward with their own name to the appropriate email addresses. Help us to help you!