Fire Dept. to introduce Medical Response Units
Posted Apr 22, 2015 7:47 am.
Last Updated Apr 27, 2015 8:33 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Calgary Fire Department is experimenting with how to deal with a spike in medical emergency calls.
Beginning this June, instead of deploying fire trucks to scenes where someone is in medical distress, the department will send a ‘Medical Response Unit’.
Fire Chief Steve Dongworth told City News they will be regular vehicles painted fire red with decals and sirens.
“We believe rather than putting more heavy fire trucks into service, it’s much more cost-effective that we would put some light medical units into services with two-person crews as opposed to four-person crews that can take that first medical call when it comes in, and therefore ensure that our fire resources are available to citizens of Calgary when they’re needed, more often,” Dongworth said.
However, in cases like roadway collisions, where equipment may be needed to extricate someone from a vehicle, a full fire truck would still be sent to the scene.
The idea has received some criticism from councillors, who believe the fire crews are doing the job of paramedics.
The pilot project costs $175,000, and will be re-evaluated in June 2016.
*Correction from earlier story: 660News reported that these medical response units would be sent to roadway collisions, instead of fire trucks. This is not correct. The fire department will always send full fire trucks in situations where extrication might be necessary.
