Village council hopes a meeting with Northern Health officials in Prince George today will result in Burns Lake becoming one of several communities participating in the province’s new Community Paramedicine Initiative.
At the urging of Mayor Luke Strimbold, council passed a resolution last week to request a May 6 meeting with health authority representatives to discuss the matter. The meeting will coincide with the North Central Local Government Association’s annual general meeting and convention.
Strimbold told council April 28 that he recently learned that three communities in the Northern Health region – Chetwynd, Hazelton, and Fort St. James – have been chosen to launch B.C.’s first Community Paramedicine Initiative. The program will see ambulance attendants in targeted rural and remote communities providing an expanded range of health care services.
“I think we need to start getting our voice out there that we as a community also want to be on this list,” Strimbold told council. “It’s my understanding that expressing an interest, and a keen interest, is important.”
Strimbold said he believes that in addition to filling needs within the health care system, the Community Paramedicine Initiative could help small communities attract and keep ambulance attendants.
“When I met with the new ambulance chief, we talked about the recruitment and retention of ambulance attendants,” he explained. “The turnover rate is significant in our community. He feels this would be an opportunity to retain and recruit more attendants, because they would get more full time work, and training opportunities as well.”
Burns Lake council may have a difficult time convincing program organizers to include Burns Lake in the project – at least at this stage.
Jodi Jensen, chief operating officer for BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS), [the agency responsible for providing emergency health care services in the province], said last week that Phase One of the project will involve only the three communities already selected.
“Phase One will involve only three communities in Northern Health, plus several other communities in other health authorities,” Jensen stated in an interview last week. “Following this phase, criteria will be established for the selection of communities as the initiative is expanded to other communities in subsequent phases.
“These are not “pilot projects” in the usual understanding that they may or may not continue in the future. The Ministry of Health and BCEHS have committed to implementing a province-wide community paramedicine program,” Jensen added. B.C.’s Community Paramedicine Initiative is a joint project involving the Ministry of Health, the province’s health authorities, and BC Emergency Health Services [the agency responsible for providing provincial ambulance and emergency health care services].
According to an April 8 letter to Bill Miller, chairman of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako, the program has three goals: ensuring a competent, sustainable paramedic presence capable of responding to medical emergencies, bridging gaps identified in patients’ health care plans in collaboration with other health care providers, and improving health service delivery by building on the existing skill sets of primary and advanced care paramedics.
Northern Health will be the first to implement the Community Paramedicine Initiative, followed later this year by the Interior and Island health authorities. In the first phase of the program, community paramedics will be working with the health authority and local health care providers to define the scope of services required in pilot communities, and develop local service plans.
Based on lessons learned in the course of this project, community paramedicine program components will be developed and the initiative expanded to other communities in B.C.
The initiative is expected to create at least 80 additional full-time equivalent paramedic positions in rural communities between now and March 31, 2019.
According to BCEHS officials, community paramedicine has been implemented successfully in many communities across Canada, including those in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia. It is also utilized in the United States and Australia.
“The experiences in other jurisdictions that have introduced community paramedicine have been positive,” said Jensen. “In some cases, they identified people waiting four to five years for long-term care facilities who, with support from community paramedics and others, were able to remain in their homes for longer periods of time.”