Fire department receives thumbs-up to offer medical first response

Miriam Ostermann
Times Associate Editor

 

Months after Medical First Responders within the Strathmore Fire Department bid the Good Samaritan Act farewell, the volunteers received the green light from Alberta Health Services (AHS) to offer medical first response when an EMS unit is absent in the Town of Strathmore.
The department traded the Act’s first aid regulations – legal protection for those assisting injured, incapacitated, or ill individuals – for AHS direction, thus ensuring complete liability coverage for its volunteers.
Prior to Nov. 5, when the Town of Strathmore council approved the changes upon AHS request, the service provided by the volunteers assured medical calls by 911 dispatched were tended to when no EMS unit was available. According to Bas Owel, captain of the Strathmore Fire Department, the service was provided without medical direction and had never been formerly documented.
“The main thing with our joint agreement before, was on fire calls we would go to a fire call and ensure that the fire fighters were safe and our crews would assess them if they got too tired to ensure they were still safe to continue fighting,” said Kevin Link, operations manager with WADEMSA. “In return, they didn’t invoice us if they came and helped us, so I think it was kind of an unwritten rule. That’s a 20-year-old agreement.”
When AHS assumed the responsibility of EMS governance and extended medical direction to municipalities within the Calgary zone at no addition cost, the Strathmore Fire Department felt they were unable to refuse the offer. Now, along with boundaries, guidelines, and protocols for the fire departments, Medical First Responders will be able to provide medical aid under the provincial Medical First Response (MFR) program.
“We are now in a position that we’re going to be offering medical first response when an EMS unit is not available,” said Bas Owel, captain of the Strathmore Fire Department.
“Our intention was not to replace the ambulance service in town. We have a class A ambulance service with three full-time staffed ambulances. We’re not there to chase an ambulance to a medical call. We’re there to provide a service when they are not available due to call volumes.”
The provincial model, developed by Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health, serves as a platform for fire department to provide enhanced patient care as well as medical response.
Under the new protocols, the volunteers, which have standard first aid training and Heartsaver CPR, are required to respond to a call within 15 minutes when an ambulance is absent.
Since Jan. 1, the Strathmore Fire Department has observed a six per cent increase in call volume, having responded to six medical calls, four of which were for medical first response.
However, Link said the changes will have no effect on the residents of Strathmore or surrounding areas.
“This is a change to benefit the fire department more than it is to benefit the patients, because we’ve always used them,” Link said. “The people that are benefiting, is the fire department because now they have more coverage through AHS. They’re there to help out when we don’t have the resources to do the job, absolutely.”
Medical First Responders provide medical assistance until the arrival of an ambulance, and do not transport the patient. In keeping with the common procedure, the fire department will con-tinue to automatically attend to calls regarding motor vehicle accidents, burns, building collapses, electrocutions, and fires.