Nanaimo questions spending on firefighters responding to medical calls

Some Nanaimo council members suspect the cost of the city’s firefighters responding to emergency medical calls is in the millions of dollars.

That’s one reason the majority of council voted in favour of finding out how many medical calls Nanaimo Fire Rescue responds to and the cost of its decades-long practice of going to those calls. The analysis from fire rescue will include the cost of wear and tear on fire trucks and other equipment.

Coun. Sheryl Armstrong, who made the motion to obtain the information, said that on April 8, 22 out of 30 calls were for ­medical aid. Out of 43 calls on April 17, 29 were for medical aid.

Last year, Nanaimo Fire Rescue, with an operating budget of just over $21 million a year, responded to 4,341 calls of all kinds.

Armstrong argues the province is relying on the city’s fire department to handle emergency medical situations amid a shortage of ambulance paramedics.

When requests for medical aid come in, ambulances go out but so do firefighters, meaning both may be on site at the same time.

A breakdown of the type of medical calls would be useful, too, Armstrong said, noting they could be cardiac incidents, injuries or calls related to overdoses.

The question about ­medical-aid response arose as Nanaimo, like other cities in the province, faces rising mental health and addictions problems at the same time as the community is growing rapidly and putting more demands on public services.

Coun. Tyler Brown was the only council member to vote against the motion, noting Nanaimo firefighters received additional training in recent years in order to be able to deliver a broader range of medical care.

Though council recognized then that it was a download to the municipality, it decided that was “something that we viewed as worth taking on for the citizens,” he said.

He and others on council suggested taking the issue to the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which could hold discussions with the province.

Fire Chief Tim Doyle said Nanaimo does not have an agreement with the province’s emergency health services to do medical aid calls.

No details were provided on how a formal agreement might work. Different communities have different agreements and Nanaimo council wants to see examples of what is in place elsewhere.

The B.C. Fire Chiefs’ Association has asked fire departments to hold off on signing new agreements until they can have some input, Doyle said.

Coun. Ben Geselbracht said a significant amount of ­municipal funding goes into firefighters providing medical aid in response to a health crisis that comes under the province’s jurisdiction — a toxic-drug ­crisis, shortage of family doctors, an aging population and more.

“As a municipality, we are having to deal with the downstream,” he said.

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