The BC Emergency Health Service (BCEHS) has postponed phasing out temporary ambulance resources at Barriere after catching North Thompson Valley leaders off guard with what was perceived as a staffing reduction.
“The BC Ambulance Service is listening, hearing our concerns and seems willing to work with us so that was a positive for me,” said Kúkpi7 George Lampreau of Simpcw. “It is good to be included in that discussion with Barriere and Clearwater as I feel our collective voice is going to bring us the strength we need to help us continue to provide the level of services we have in the valley now.”
Cindy Leong, BCEHS communications officer, said the phasing out of the temporary, additional resource that has been based in Barriere will not result in any loss of full-time staffing positions, as that ambulance has been staffed by part-time or casual staff.
“Two years ago, to support staffing in the broader North Thompson and Kamloops area, BCEHS temporarily added paramedic resources based out of Barriere,” she said. “These resources were always meant to be temporary and, given BCEHS is a provincial service with no municipal boundaries, were also meant to be deployed to and utilized by neighbouring communities, such as Clearwater, Chase, the Simpcw First Nation, and Kamloops, as required.”
Leong explained there are no changes to the 24/7 ambulance coverage in Clearwater. Clearwater has an Alpha (paramedics at the station 24/7) ambulance which operates 24/7.
“To support staffing in the North Thompson area, Clearwater’s Kilo ambulance (staffed when needed by paramedics on-call) has been temporarily staffed as a Juliet resource (paramedics were paid to be at the station instead of only for on-call hours). Since staffing has now stabilized in the North Thompson area, the Kilo ambulance will return to normal on-call staffing in the coming months,” Leong noted.
Staff who are scheduled to be on-call receive $12/hr for each scheduled hour on-call. When they are called out, they receive their full wage for a minimum of four hours.
Lampreau, Mayor Ward Stamer of Barriere, and Mayor Merlin Blackwell of Clearwater, had reached out to Doug Garland, BCEHS Director, Clinical Operations, Interior West Districts for a virtual meeting to discuss the unexpected changes.
“We talked with Doug Garland addressing our concerns and overall, it was a fairly good meeting,” says Stamer. “Where we have the problem is there was no prior consultation, and this caught us off-guard. He did apologize for that.”
“What isn’t often understood are the logistics of our health care situations in the valley that impact all of us here. You can’t just go by data. The Barriere health care clinic does not have a walk-in clinic, and the challenges that brings for any type of ambulatory call and response are serious … We will be talking to them after spring break to see what flexibility we have in trying to maintain some of the services levels.”
Stamer explains that Barriere First Responders are not a 24/7 service, the team is volunteer, and he is not informed about availability of their unit at any given time.
“If we have a crash, for example, and both ambulances attend that scene, I have no idea if the First Responder vehicle is available. The BC Ambulance Service doesn’t either, but they would call out to check. Even if the First Responder vehicle is available, they are not permitted to transfer. They must sit there waiting for whatever ambulance is available from Clearwater, 100 Mile, or wherever. The highway could be blocked, and it might take an ambulance from elsewhere longer to come around another way to reach the scene.
“I’ve asked explicitly time and again to have the ability to make an exception to our Barriere First Responders being able to transport in an emergency or critical situation. I’m talking about the flexibility to be able to use that vehicle in a critical care need.”
Lampreau says the meeting was “a good collaboration, and we are working together for positive results for all valley residents.” During the meeting, he pointed out that his community is further away from any medical attention, and reducing the ambulance availability in the valley would put that much more pressure on his community, especially given the number of serious crashes on Highway 5.
Blackwell says he asked the community to step up and become paramedics a couple of years ago when there weren’t enough paramedics in Clearwater and they were running with one ambulance.
“In the summer of 2022 eight people signed up to take training to become our ambulance crew out of Clearwater after I put the call out for the need for that. As a result, our area became a place with strong crew, to the point that our trained people were then covering for places like 100 Mile House and even for Kamloops.”
He says the Clearwater ambulance staff will often transport to Kamloops. When that area has been understaffed in the past they would stay there and do extra trips around Kamloops, picking up people as far as Ashcroft, 100 Mile House, and surrounding areas.
“There are a number of topics we have to discuss with BCEHS, but for right now we are putting the brakes on any changes until at least the end of April,” says Stamer. “I’m confident that working together with BCEHS, the paramedics, hopefully Interior Health and provincial government officials that we will be able to have a good solution going forward for the valley.
“That is really what we are talking about. It’s not just in Barriere, it’s all of us. It’s the whole North Thompson. That’s what is the priority.”
