A review of an incident from June 2022 which led to a woman dying after waiting 20 minutes for an ambulance has emergency officials in Calgary, Alberta rethinking the separation of EMS from fire and police call-takers, as short-staffing is believed to have limited communication with emergency services, according to an article in the CBC.
Previously housed at the same location, the services are now at separate location, which limits integration between the different groups. Says Tom Sampson, a former chief of emergency medial services for the city, notes when the services were housed together, “Calgary’s integrated system was arguably one of the best in the world. The training of the staff in the centre was fantastic and the collaboration between all three services was good.”
Sampson also noted the flexibility the close integration allowed, saying, “If fire is extremely busy because there’s a large three-alarm fire going on … dispatchers from the other side of the room can help out. Fire dispatchers can help EMS folks when they are overloaded.”
Delays in emergency response caused by communication and coordination issues are also being cited as contributing factors to deaths in Buffalo’s recent historic blizzard, where the city’s emergency preparedness has been called into question, according to an article in The Washington Post. Currently without an official emergency manager, the city has also drawn criticism for lack of involvement in the county’s emergency preparedness planning, and for the failure to provide an emergency response or preparation section on the city’s website. Writes Mitch Nowakowski, Fillmore District council member, “In order to make the city safer in the future from human or natural disasters, disaster preparedness is critical. There were clear deficiencies in the emergency response to the December 2022 Blizzard that need to be immediately addressed.”
Source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/01/19/buffalo-blizzard-deaths-emergency-response/
