LACOMBE, AB. – The City of Lacombe has decided to limit its fire department’s medical first response services, which currently include assisting ambulance attendants with patient lifts, helping people out of buildings or confined areas, and providing initial First Aid treatment at crashes, as well as fire and rescue calls.
Firefighters are typically first on scene for both fires and collisions but, Lacombe’s new Fire Chief is worried about the types of calls they’ve been responding to.
“Lacombe fire has been responding to an increasing number of serious medical requests,” said Ed van Delden. “all of these (requests) for the most part are serious enough to warrant advanced life support type of systems, and Lacombe fire provides medical assistance at the basic First Aid level.”
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van Delden says while volunteer fire crews are extremely competent in First Aid, they are being called out to critical medical situations when EMS is delayed.
As a result, the city says it will stop using firefighters for medical first response.
Firefighters will continue to provide initial First Aid at fire and collision scenes, but will not be going to emergency calls involving heart attacks, strokes and drug overdoses.
“It would be irresponsible for the City of Lacombe to put its volunteer firefighters in a potentially traumatic, emotional and possibly liable position for a service they are not fully qualified to perform,” said Mayor Steve Christie. “This is why Council made the decision to not be first responders to these emergency medical calls.”
Christie says concerns began mounting when Alberta Health Services took over Lacombe’s ambulance services in October.
AHS officials say Lacombe fire crews were called dozens of times in the past year to help when ambulances were delayed, but say they do not believe patient care will be jeopardized.
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