Saint John police responding to fewer medical calls to test efficiency

Saint John police are testing whether responding to fewer medical calls will improve efficiency and resource use within the force.

The pilot program, which began Feb. 1 and will run for a year, will see 911 dispatchers using a set of criteria to determine whether police need to respond to a medical call.

Right now, Emergency Medical Services, Saint John police and Saint John fire all respond to medical calls.

According to a release by Saint John police, the approach results in "overlapping responses" and can pull police resources away from other policing responsibilities and create inefficiencies.

"We want to be sure that if we're going to medical calls, they're the ones we need to go to," Matthew Weir, a sergeant with the force, said in an interview.

"Certainly the calls that require the police, anything that is criminal in nature, anything where there's a safety concern, we're still going to be going to."

Police will also still respond to incidents if they are closer to the scene than Ambulance New Brunswick or the city's fire department. If paramedics treat a patient who becomes violent and aggressive, police will still get involved.

The program was designed in collaboration with Ambulance New Brunswick and Saint John fire, according to the force. Neither of those organizations responded to interview requests.

Weir said medical calls, which range from heart attacks and seizures to suicide attempts and overdoses, have have increased in recent years — especially overdoses.

"We've seen an increase in those. There's no two ways about that, he said.

"The run of the day I sit here and I have my radio on as I'm doing work, and I can hear the officers on the road responding to a lot more overdose calls than we would have in the past."

Dispatchers will mostly be deciding whether police should attend a medical call based on the new criteria, Weir said. 

Mary Ann Campbell, a psychology professor at University of New Brunswick in Saint John and the director of the school's Centre for Criminal Justice Studies and Policing Research, has been working with Saint John police on critical incident response training. 

She said with more calls coming into 911, use of police resources is a balancing act.

"Do we want them at medical calls where there isn't a whole lot for them to do, along with the other responders that go to those, or do we want them to go to and be available for responding to the domestic assaults, to the break and enters, to the thefts and all these other kinds of things that are really in the lane for a police officer to respond to?" she said.

Campbell's understanding is mental health calls are not considered medical calls in this context. 

When asked specifically about whether mental health calls are included in the pilot program, Weir said officers will rely on the expertise of dispatchers. 

"There certainly are a significant number of mental health calls now. How do they get classified? Are they medical emergencies, is it somebody being violent and aggressive, is there something criminal in nature there? Those factors will determine our response to those calls."