A statement from BC Emergency Health Services says it received a call to respond to a patient in the community of Barrierre, about 80 kilometers north of Kamloops, on August 25. The agency has not confirmed the patient’s age or cause of death, but says it has opened a review of the call for service and will work with the patient care quality office to contact the family and address any questions or concerns. Troy Clifford, president of BC Ambulance Paramedics, spoke to the media over the weekend about the death of an infant in Barriere. Clifford said his organization will continue to face a “province-wide staffing crisis,” including communities like Barriere that he said “often go without adequate ambulance coverage for long periods of time due to staffing issues.” However, he was unable to confirm whether the ambulance response time was a contributing factor in the infant’s death, instead referring inquiries to Emergency Health Services. The agency said the nearest available ambulance was dispatched immediately and local firefighters were also asked to assist with the call.
The Mayor seeks change
Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer, meanwhile, is asking for flexibility around who first responders are allowed to transport patients to the hospital after reports of death. Stamer said his community has a first responder society with a vehicle that can respond when BC Ambulance Service cannot, but they are not allowed to transport patients to hospital. He said that needs to change as the community faces gaps in service that mean first responders may not be available when someone calls 911. The paramedic shortage affects volunteer firefighters in rural areas who are pressed to help. For the second time in less than a month, a person has died while waiting for emergency treatment in the small town of Ashcroft in the southern interior. Marcella Bernardo reports pic.twitter.com/eCJL5wGxhb —@cbcnewsbc In an interview Monday, the mayor said he was not told how long it took paramedics to respond to the call about the infant last Thursday. He could not give details of what happened, saying only that there was a “critical care incident” involving a young child who died. Stammer said everything he knows is based on what Troy Clifford told the media – that there was a fully manned vehicle in Barrier, but it diverted south to help in Kamloops. There is usually one ambulance in Barriere and two in Clearwater, about 60 kilometers north, but they are shared across the region, Stamer said. “From what I understand, there was only one car for all of Kamloops that Thursday night, and that’s why they took ours,” he said. The service does not tell local government when the Barriere-based ambulance is being diverted until later, he said. Clifford said his agency will continue to face a “province-wide staffing crisis,” adding that it leaves communities like Barriere without adequate ambulance coverage for long periods of time.
Rural ambulance concerns
Stamer described a situation about two weeks ago when a woman in Barriere suffered a stroke when ambulance service was not immediately available. The woman’s daughter was pulled over by RCMP for speeding while taking her mother to hospital in Kamloops, about 66 kilometers away, and the Mounties ended up accompanying them, he said. “We all have stories like that,” he said of rural communities across B.C Stamer said there is a “higher level of stress” in Barriere, as residents don’t know what level of ambulance service might be available on a given day. “Do we have to prepare our residents, like an evacuation notice, so you have a full tank of gas so you can throw somebody in the pickup truck and drive them around town? That’s kind of where we are sometimes.” he said. Stammer said he and other mayors from communities in BC’s Interior are discussing coming together at the Association of BC Municipalities meeting next month to try to get the ear of provincial authorities. “We’re not trying to point fingers here and we’re not blaming anyone,” he said. “We just want to be able to sit down and see if we can have a constructive meeting, to see if we can come up with some short-term solutions to the problems that we all face in these communities.”
