Mayor Kim Love asked Council at the April 16 meeting to support an imminent County move to question the province’s surprise decision to merge Ontario’s 59 ambulance services into 10. She said the sudden announcement came on the heels of similar centralization of local public health units from 35 to 10 (announced April 12) and Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) from 15 to 5 (announced January 18). Love said,
The land ambulance issue … literally was not mentioned in the provincial budget beyond talking about “streamlining the way land ambulance despatch services are delivered” and “better integrating Ontario’s 59 emergency health services operators and 22 despatch centres.” … There was nothing in the budget to indicate Paramedicine would also be affected.
Although the promised statement from County of Renfrew was not available at the April 16 meeting (see below), Council voted to give Love a general authority “that Council supports the position of the County of Renfrew as it pertains to consultation and clarification of the government position for ambulance restructuring.”
Love told Council that County has long been aware that services funded by the County of Renfrew are being drawn into the City of Ottawa. She said, “Our deployment is depleted by this draw into Ottawa and our ambulances not being able to get out of there in a quick manner once they bring someone in. So every time that happens and one or two ambulances are stuck in the City of Ottawa, the entire deployment for the County shifts a little bit closer towards Arnprior. And that does mean that our ambulance that’s supposed to be stationed in Barry’s Bay is now moved a little closer towards Killaloe or Golden Lake.”
Love comments after emergency Easter Special Council meeting
Five days later after the emergency Special Council meeting held on Easter Sunday to discuss flood risk, Love told The Current that they still do not have any concrete information on the cuts to health and ambulance services, and library services. She said County has a lot of capital invested in the ambulance service and a lot of employees who are specially trained to work in our unique rural area. She said that over the Easter weekend,
… rather than send out volunteer firefighters or paramedics into those areas they’re flying drones down the areas that are showing a risk of flooding just to see, to get that high level view of what’s going on, see if there’s any blockage in a river, if there’s anything causing those problems.
This is the type of specialist service she talked about on April 16 that is provided by ambulance services here in Renfrew County. Love said it was unlikely that personnel with these specialist skill sets would be available from a centralized service covering a wider geographic area. She specifically referred to:
- Community Paramedicine, that helps decrease healthcare costs and keep residents in their homes longer
- Specialist training to enable paramedics to go into the bush to assist in survival situations
- Cross-training with Canada Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) in case of a nuclear incident
- Cross-training with Garrison Petawawa
The Mayor subsequently confirmed to The Current that a special meeting of the Health Committee was held on April 24 and a committee report was presented to County Council afterwards. She said,
The resolution in the report received the full support of County Council, and Renfrew County is committed to continuing to fund and deliver paramedic services as planned for in the 2019 Budget. A position letter based on the information in this report will be sent to the province and provided to all municipalities in the County for their consideration and support. It was decided to delay the correspondence I was told we would receive last Tuesday in order to get the full support of County Council [on April 24]. I look forward to working on behalf of our communities and participating in the future consultations proposed by the province in relation to the People’s Health Care Act.
AMO’s reaction to the Province’s announcement
In a statement dated April 16 2019, Pat Vanini, Executive Director and Chair of Health Committee for the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), said,
AMO is shocked with today’s news and deeply concerned. There is no ready information on the government’s plan to do this restructuring, how it was determined, let alone what happens to cost sharing and say for pay among other governance and funding matters. Municipal governments contribute about $720 million and the province about $580 million to what has been a cost-shared service, although not at a true 50-50 one.
Photo renfrewparamedics.ca
