As emergency rooms across the province continue to see rolling closures, B.C.’s paramedics have been filling in.
The Ambulance Paramedics Of BC union says the situation isn’t sustainable. Ian Tait, the union’s communications director, tells 1130 NewsRadio that paramedics are regularly working on their days off.
“So they’ll work a block in Vancouver, and then on their day off, they’ll be on a plane flying up to Prince George, Prince Rupert and surrounding areas — working three or four shifts on their days off, flown back down, and starting their block again,” said Tait.
When ER’s close, Tait says paramedics have to take patients long distances to the next closest hospital. For example, he says when the Mission ER was closed Thursday night, patients were taken to Ridge Meadows or Abbotsford.
But in more remote communities where hospitals can be hours away, he says paramedics still have to make the drive. While patients may not be dying due to the closures, Tait says there are health impacts.
“If you’re having a heart attack, you need to be treated quickly, and you need to be with a certain heart center that can do advanced procedures. If you can’t get that within an hour and it takes four hours there, your heart muscle is dying in that time. So that might not kill you, but it will have really prolonged life-long effects on your health,” he said.
He says the system as it is now, also takes its toll on his union.
“Paramedics can only work so many 12-hour shifts, back to back to back to back with minimal sleep before they burn out … That’s a recipe for disaster, for sure,” said Tait.
Tait says he believes the provincial government and BC Emergency Health Services are doing everything they can to dispatch staff where needed, but something needs to change.
“We’re going to be at the Union of BC municipalities in September, where we talk to all the municipal leaders … And I think that’s going to be a big top discussion at that conference, is these ongoing and possibly never-ending ER closures.”
—With files from Cole Schisler