Vancouver’s fire chief says changes were needed to how crews respond to certain medical calls, especially at some of the city’s busiest halls.
In the first quarter of the year, there were almost 6,000 apparatus runs from Firehall 2 in the Downtown Eastside. These calls are when a crew and truck respond to an emergency.
Firefighters say more than half of these calls were medical calls.
Across the city, firefighters have stopped responding to Code Orange calls, where a patient has serious injuries, and fire halls in the Downtown Eastside, Strathcona and Yaletown have stopped responding to some Code Red calls, which are possibly life-threatening.
They continue to attend to Code Purple emergencies, which involve the most critical patients.
“When we have an increase in medical calls, it leaves us less available to respond to fires and to respond to other emergencies, like rescues, hazardous material instance technical rescues,” Vancouver Fire Rescue Chief Karen Fry said.
However, those who work with the city’s most vulnerable are concerned.
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“When we’re dealing with seniors and others who have ongoing health needs outside of just overdoses, any kind of delay in getting medical support is hugely concerning to us,” Nick Wells with the Union Gospel Mission said.
Paramedics also say these changes could mean longer wait times for some patients.
“If anything from this fire department change, maybe that’ll shine a spotlight on how many ambulances should actually be put into service, and a lot of these areas, like the Downtown Eastside,” Ian Tait, provincial director with the Ambulance Paramedics of BC, said.
In a statement, BC’s Emergency Health Services said that “Changes to this response model may have impacts on patient outcomes in certain time-sensitive emergencies, such as overdoses, and we will be closely monitoring these effects.”
In mid-June, Firehall 2 will stop responding to all Code Red calls if an ambulance is less than six minutes away.
Fry said the public will not notice a significant difference.
“We still expect they’ll still be the busiest fire hall in our city,” she said.
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