Local medical first responders are back on call in Dorchester and Memramcook
After nine months, Ambulance New Brunswick has listened to local authorities and will return to the practice of dispatching medical calls to the twelve fire departments in the province trained as medical first responders. Dorchester Fire Department and Memramcook Fire Department are two of those twelve, and the news has been welcomed in both communities.
Dorchester Fire Chief Greg Partridge says he is “very happy for our community, very happy for the province,” and is hoping that Ambulance NB makes good on a promise to offer dispatching to other fire departments interested in taking on the responsibility. “I’d like to see it expanded,” says Partridge. “That would be a plus for everybody.”
Memramcook Mayor Maxime Bourgeois says he was also happy to receive the news on Wednesday that Ambulance NB would make the change. “We were putting a lot of pressure, and they were saying that they were working on it,” says Bourgeois, “but obviously, we were a little bit skeptical about how fast they could resolve this issue.”
It’s been about nine months since Ambulance NB stopped medical call dispatching. In March, spokesperson Christianna Williston told CHMA via email that the organization didn’t have the mandate to dispatch to fire departments, and that they had determined doing so was no longer sustainable.
On Wednesday, Williston confirmed the return to medical first responders dispatching would take place October 5, and that it would happen “through existing resources”.… Continue
‘Someone’s going to die’: Ambulance NB stops dispatching local first responders and citizens and firefighters fear the consequences
Roselys Belliveau thinks very fondly of her local fire department, and with good reason. One July day in 2020 her son Jean Yves Belliveau was up early and preparing for a trip when he suddenly felt ill. Before too long, Belliveau had collapsed. His wife frantically called 911, and within minutes, help arrived. But not an ambulance. That would arrive later. The first people on the scene were from the Memramcook Fire Department, where firefighters are trained and equipped for medical first aid response. The firefighters used a defibrillator to help revive Belliveau, something they had to do three times, and well before the ambulance arrived on scene.
“If it wasn’t for the Memramcook firemen,” says Belliveau, her now 48 year old son Jean Yves “wouldn’t be here at all.”
But since a change to Ambulance NB’s protocol in January, it’s unclear whether the Memramcook Fire Department will be called to help people like Jean Yves Belliveau in the future.
Not all fire departments in New Brunswick are trained or equipped for medical first aid. Memramcook was one of the first in the province to take on the extra duty, with a pilot project in 1999. Dorchester has also been doing medical first response for decades, and the newly amalgamated Straight Shores department, with Port Elgin and Cape Tormentine stations, is also trained to first responder first aid level.… Continue