{"id":3765,"date":"2020-09-28T22:32:52","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T01:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=3765"},"modified":"2020-09-28T22:32:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T01:32:52","slug":"province-parks-north-queens-medical-first-responders-due-to-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2020\/09\/28\/province-parks-north-queens-medical-first-responders-due-to-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Province parks North Queens medical first responders due to COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"North

Trucks outside North Queens station. Photo Credit: North Queens Fire Department<\/p><\/div>\n

Medical first responders in North Queens are being told not to respond to calls because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

The MFRs are volunteer firefighters trained to attend to someone in medical distress until paramedics arrive on scene.<\/p>\n

Queens-Shelburne MLA Kim Masland says when someone is having a medical emergency, waiting 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive from the nearest EHS base in Liverpool is too long.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re living in Caledonia and you\u2019re in cardiac arrest, the local MFRs can no longer come to you, who actually have an AED on site, there\u2019s no way someone\u2019s going to get to you in time,\u201d said Masland.<\/p>\n

In March, the EHS\/MFR coordinator told MFRs across the province they could respond only to motor vehicle accidents and to leave emergency calls to EHS paramedics because at the time, there wasn\u2019t enough personal protective equipment to go around.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Emergency Health Services says since COVID-19 restrictions have started to ease up, they have been bringing MFRs back online in 21 areas with high incidents of cardiac arrests.<\/p>\n

Already, 11 have received the training around proper use of the new personal protective equipment and are currently operating.<\/p>\n

The other ten are slated to return to service in the coming weeks but unfortunately, none of those are in the Western Zone servicing North Queens.<\/p>\n

The EHS spokesperson says the North Queens MFR agency is one of the more remote agencies in the province and is also scheduled to receive training in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Masland is concerned about what could happen if an ambulance can\u2019t get to the area in time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so rural, we\u2019re so geographically isolated and if I\u2019m getting text messages saying on a Saturday morning at 11:55 there\u2019s not an ambulance to be seen from Barrington to Halifax, that\u2019s very, very frightening,\u201d said Masland.<\/p>\n

North Queens Fire Chief Chris Wolfe says the community has always relied on the department as medical responders and as fire fighters.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s frustrated they\u2019re being left in the dark as to why the department is no longer being dispatched for medical emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I see somebody in Caledonia they\u2019re saying, why aren\u2019t you guys answering medical calls?So and so had this problem the other night and you guys weren\u2019t there,\u201d said Wolfe. \u201cTo me, if EHS is not going to allow us to do this they should be making it more publicly aware and giving briefings to the public on what\u2019s taking place, why we\u2019re not responding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe is well aware of the strain on the province\u2019s ambulance system.<\/p>\n

He has been writing to government officials for the past three years to explain the dire situation residents in North Queens can face when looking for emergency medical help.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing problem and the province doesn\u2019t seem to see that there is a problem. I\u2019m to the point myself, that I can\u2019t write no more or talk no more to change anything so, where do you go, right? It\u2019s one of them things that a little town fire chief like me isn\u2019t going to be able to fix \u2018cause there\u2019s too many people above me that make the decisions,\u201d said Wolfe.<\/p>\n

The president of Local 727 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, the union representing paramedics in Nova Scotia, says the EHS system in Nova Scotia is in chaos as it struggles to fill shifts and reduce offloading time for patients at hospitals.<\/p>\n

Michael Nickerson says it\u2019s helpful to have MFRs to service remote areas before his members arrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can provide oxygen therapy and get vital signs and treat fractures, like, splint fractures and dress wounds, bandage and whatnot,\u201d said Niickerson. \u201cSo, they are a great, great asset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nickerson says his members have been warning the province since before the COVID-19 outbreak that the pre-hospital system in Nova Scotia is not working.<\/p>\n

The health department took those concerns to heart when they commissioned a $145,000 report by Fitch and Associates in October 2018 to review the ambulance system across the province.<\/p>\n

The province received the report in December of that year, but Nickerson says despite repeated requests by IUOE 727, they still have not released the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand why they\u2019re not putting it out there. They\u2019re saying because, you know, negotiations and whatnot. Our contract\u2019s settled, so they can\u2019t use that as an excuse. They need to put that report out and let us see what\u2019s in it. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s recommendations in there to make the system better than it is right now,\u201d said Nickerson.<\/p>\n

Health department spokesperson Marla MacInnis said they are currently in negotiations with Emergency Medical Care Incorporated, the company contracted by the province to provide paramedic services.<\/p>\n

She says while the paramedics working under EMCI have a contract in place, the contract with the supplier (ECMI) is still being negotiated and releasing the Fitch report could put the province at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

Back in Queens, Kim Masland says now that the province has the personal protective equipment in place the focus should be on getting the medical first responders trained, and back in action.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo let\u2019s get our agencies back in the saddle,\u201d said Masland. \u201cLet\u2019s get them doing what they do best in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reported by Ed Halverson\u00a0<\/strong>
\nE-mail:\u00a0edhalversonnews@gmail.com<\/a><\/strong>
\nTwitter: @edwardhalverson<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medical first responders in North Queens are being told not to respond to calls because of COVID-19. The MFRs are volunteer firefighters trained to attend to someone in medical distress until paramedics arrive on scene. Queens-Shelburne MLA Kim Masland says when someone is having a medical emergency, waiting 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[32,20,35,30,34,31,37,33,29,36],"class_list":["post-3765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-chris-wolfe","tag-covid-19","tag-ehs","tag-first-responders","tag-iuoe-727","tag-kim-masland","tag-medical-first-responders","tag-michael-nickerson","tag-north-queens","tag-paramedics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3767,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions\/3767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}