Whether a critical-care ambulance should be stationed at YVR or in the Fraser Valley is the centre of a dispute between the union representing paramedics and BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS).
After five years stationed in Abbotsford, the car and its crew were repositioned back to the airport in order to respond by air or ground when critical transfers are needed.
Troy Clifford, president of the Ambulance Paramedics of BC, said the removal was poor timing given the ambulance is the only COVID-19 emergency response unit for several municipalities in the Fraser Valley.
“The decision to remove the lone critical-care ambulance from the Fraser Valley will have serious consequences on patient outcomes, with the worst-case scenario being death,” Clifford said in a press release, adding the specialized unit has been used to transport unstable ventilated COVID-19 patients.
The ambulance works like a “mobile intensive care unit,” Clifford explained, and it is specialized to treat and transfer acute or injured patients.
But a BCEHS spokesperson, Shannon Miller, pointed out the critical-care unit isn’t meant for responding to medical scenes, adding its use was limited in the Fraser Valley and some days it wasn’t used at all.
As part of the ground/air unit at YVR, located at the South Terminal, the critical care unit can be used across the province. On its first day back at YVR the crew was sent to Bella Coola to transfer patients, Miller explained.
This particular unit, which is a provincial resource, can respond anywhere within the Greater Lower Mainland region, including the Sea-to-Sky corridor and Fraser Valley, by air if required, according to BCEHS.
Critical-care paramedics focus largely on transferring patients to a higher level of care, Miller said, and local primary care or advanced care paramedics can respond to any patients in the Fraser Valley.
Clifford said he’s concerned about the need to transfer patients in the Fraser Valley, especially given numbers of COVID-19 are higher in the Fraser Health Authority than other B.C. jurisdictions. (As of Tuesday, 1,124 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in the Fraser Valley compared to 874 in VCH.)
And as the only ground-based unit in the province, and with weather conditions making air transport sometimes difficult, Clifford is puzzled that the unit would be pulled away after five years.
“The timing doesn’t make sense to me, to be honest,” Clifford said, adding “Where is the evidence that this is actually in the best interest of patients and the communities out there?”
Furthermore, he pointed out the ambulance was stationed in Abbotsford for five years, and objections about moving it, raised by the union, weren’t responded to.
The decision by BCEHS was made without consulting stakeholders, he added, and he is asking the government to reverse its decision.
