MARTENSVILLE — In response to an email sent out by the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) regarding “patient abandonment,” Martensville Fire Chief Dean Brooman recently assured council they are not leaving patients to fend for themselves despite long wait times for ambulances to arrive on scene.
“We have never and never will abandon a patient. We always make sure that the patient is stable,” Brooman told councillors at the May 6 committee of the whole meeting.
The discussion was sparked by an email recently sent to first responders and fire departments across Saskatchewan by the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA) Provincial Responders Leadership Team.
The email states there is a legal obligation for a medical first responder to continue treatment until the transfer of the patient’s care to someone with equal or higher qualifications can occur.
As well, medical first responders must remain on scene and wait for EMS to arrive, even if a patient wishes to refuse care.
To be clear, the SHA’s letter doesn’t specifically say that Martensville had done anything wrong, or singled out any other city/rural fire department. Regardless, it did create some confusion.
“There is no ‘patient abandonment’ within the City of Martensville. We’ve never ever abandoned a patient on any call,” Brooman said.
“We do go to lots of calls lately where we do have a delay in ambulance service, so we do find ourselves being on scene for extended periods of time. However, we do have a protocol that we follow if an ambulance is going to be delayed to try to get that patient to the hospital.”
These alternative methods include relying on a patient’s family or friends to transport them, or even hiring a service that will transport the patient to hospital. They’ve also sometimes contacted Medavie West (which operates an ambulance base in Martensville) to get them to send another ambulance from another area.
Brooman suggested these longer wait times may be occurring because of a higher rate of overdose incidents occurring in the region.
“With the overdose issues we see in the City of Saskatoon, and some overdoses we’ve seen out there, we’ve definitely seen some longer times in the past few weeks,” he said.
Brooman had reached out to SHA for clarification about the e-mail but had not received any response. Likewise, other fire departments he had spoken to had been left in the dark.
Martensville City Manager Tanya Garost said she believed the SHA’s e-mail was sent out because of some incident that occurred in rural Saskatchewan, though she had no exact details about what happened.
In comparison to Martensville, which has a full-time fire chief and deputy chief, rural departments don’t have the capacity to be sitting around for long periods of time after responding to a medical call.
“If you have a full volunteer force, how can you … expect them to sit around and wait for an ambulance for hours at a time?” she asked.
LANGHAM CONCERNS
Regardless of what spurred the SHA email, it resulted in a Town of Langham councillor, Doug Simpson, sending on his own message in response to the City of Martensville.
Simpson said he had spoken to Langham’s fire chief, and he had concerns over the SHA downloading the “cost burden” for emergency medical services to municipalities, as they cannot bill SHA for medical callouts.
Furthermore, he worried that responding to medical calls was tying up their “already limited resources,” which could result in a rural department not responding to a bigger emergency.
It could also lead to volunteer burnout, as their fire department, like many other rural municipalities, relies entirely on volunteers.
If the choice comes down to their livelihoods or helping their communities, Simpson said these volunteers would be forced to choose the former.
“I’m concerned with the mental health effects that may have on already taxed first responders in having to even consider that choice,” he added.
Simpson said he would like to initiate some community dialogue to make sure his concerns reflect what other municipalities are feeling, and to possibly canvass the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) to help rectify this growing problem.
Garost said that if council was comfortable with the idea, administration could draft a letter indicating their support for SHA to provide adequate ambulance service to relieve the pressure on volunteer fire departments across the province. After some discussion, council agreed with the recommendation.
That letter will be returning to the Martensville council meeting on Tuesday, June 3, for review.
