MrVelvet
Member
Jay, or anyone else, did Calgary EMS go to mutual aid for PRUs today?
I heard 902 being dispatched and moved to 6 station here in town.
I heard 902 being dispatched and moved to 6 station here in town.
I think there's going to be a lot of "more to evaluate than (we) expected" for the whole thing, same as they were in 2005.
Anyway, it's going to be an interesting first few months of the year. We'll see.
I guess that mean the FREMS dispatch centre is either going to become extremely quiet only dispatching Fire, become the lone contract region in the Province or shut their doors completely and farm their FD dispatch out to someone else.All of these ambulance services will be dispatched by one dispatch center come January 1st.
The only Calgary-area dispatch center so far that's been ruled out of being a dispatch center for the health region is Wheatland County. They stated in July this past year that they would be discontinuing their dispatch functions come January 1 and would be looking for another agency to handle their fire stations' dispatch.
The others that still have a legitimate chance at being awarded the ambulance dispatch for Calgary are FREMS, Calgary PSC, and STARS. The decision will be announced by the province on December 5 (along with the other eight health regions).
There is an article in the October 29 edition of the Okotoks Western Wheel newspaper that seems to sum up the FREMS officials' feelings about the situation (and who they think will get the contract for the CHR).
And to clarify the topic of 'contract entity' mentioned earlier, it is ambulance services themselves that are able to opt into this situation. Out of the agencies that PSC currently dispatches (not all the agencies in the CHR - my error), only one has chosen to do the contracted service route. They will still be dispatched by the dispatch service that covers the whole of CHR, it's just that the staff and ambulances will be provided by the agency instead of by Alberta Health.
any one know how BC runs its sevice?
Out of the 3 you posted, I would think PSC has a distinct advantage of becoming the central call centre. The level of calls that Calgary produces alone would overwhelm FREMS and STARS.
Terry Waddock said:If [the provincial dispatch system] were run by Calgary, nothing against Calgary, but they’re not experienced with rural dispatch.
I would also guess PSC would then need to have 2 standards for call taking in the future. With PSC's vision of having one single call taker responsibility, (Fire, EMS, Police all in one), they'd have to maintain a level of their current system where Police calls would be re-routed.