The fentanyl epidemic has exposed the need for first responders to take a more active role in preventing overdoses, instead of the current reactionary approach of trying to save someone after they have overdosed, according to the union representing B.C. paramedics.
The Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. union is pushing for dedicated community paramedicine teams to be stationed in “hot spots” where there is a high risk of overdose.
This would allow paramedics to dispense naloxone, test drugs for fentanyl and refer drug users to medical treatment services.
“There’s hot spots in the Victoria downtown core that could really use a community paramedicine team,” said Tamara McNay, a Victoria paramedic and regional vice-president for the union.
Community paramedicine is already a strategy used in rural and remote areas, but has not been used in urban environments.
McNay said the ability to provide these extra resources comes down to “dollars and cents.
“But in our business, it comes down to who lives and who dies,” she said.
B.C. Ambulance needs 27 additional full-time vehicles to keep up with an increase in calls in Greater Victoria and Metro Vancouver, according to a review of resources commissioned by B.C. Emergency Health Services.
“We’re very short-staffed, and the government needs to act,” McNay said. “Patients are being put at risk.”
Lance Stephenson, the ambulance service’s director of patient-care delivery, acknowledges the resource shortage.
“There is a push to get more resources over the next few years,” he said.
B.C. Ambulance is seeing a five per cent increase in overall call volume in the Victoria area and a 6.4 per cent increase across B.C.
Stephenson said the service is considering many interventions to help address the fentanyl crisis, including the union’s proposal for community paramedicine teams.
He said the powerful opioid is not only affecting the street population.
“We’re seeing it in all walks of life. So to be able to say we’re going to hit a specific sub-group of people and make a significant difference, we’re not sure that’s really possible,” he said.
Stephenson said since January, more than 2,000 first responders, including firefighters and police officers, have been trained in how to recognize signs of an overdose and how to administer the naloxone opioid antidote.
McNay said this is an example of downloading the problem to other agencies that are not fully equipped to deal with medical emergencies.
“At the end of the day, these people need intervention, they need hospital treatment,” she said.
“And the frontline paramedics are the only ones who can give these interventions.”
Health Minister Terry Lake said paramedics and other first responders deserve a big thank-you for the role they have played on the front lines of the fentanyl crisis.
The plan submitted by B.C. Emergency Health Services is going through a review, Lake said.
At this point, eight additional ambulances have been put on the road in the Lower Mainland, and the province is recruiting paramedics to staff those vehicles, said Lake.
“But it goes beyond that. And the longer-term plan is one that I’m looking at at the moment, and hopefully get it into our budget for 2017.”
