Air ambulances should be integrated with road service by May, health authority says
Gander will play key role, health authority says
Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services says it's in the final stages of fully integrating air and ground ambulance services in the province.
Road ambulances were integrated last June, and the health authority's CEO, Dr. Pat Parfrey, says work to integrate air ambulances should be completed in April or May.
"The intent of air and ground ambulance was to have an integrated system across the province, both for Labrador and for Newfoundland, and that we would have a central dispatch," Parfrey told CBC News Thursday.
"We're in the process of negotiating the contract and working out how to integrate the air component."
Medavie Health N.L. Inc. was chosen as manager and operator of the air ambulance service in October. PAL Airlines and Air Borealis are also partnering with Medavie to help facilitate the air ambulance system.
According to a news release from October, Medavie is required to provide staff, manage all dispatch efforts, manage road ambulance base infrastructure and implement a 10-year plan to up-skill and transition the paramedicine workforce to a minimum of primary care paramedic certification.
The decision was met with initial resistance from residents of the Gander area, who voiced concerns that the town's airport was left out of the request for proposals as a potential base for air ambulance services.
Cassie Chisholm, the health authority's vice-president of the transformation of health systems, said Thursday that plans have since changed. She sees Gander as playing a vital role in the air ambulance service.
"It's a big job to look across the landscape, understand what the needs of the province are," Chisholm said. "There's no doubt in my mind that there will be a role for Gander to play, and it will be an important one."
Chisholm said the health authority has seen improvements to the road ambulance system since its integration last summer — like the introduction of GPS vehicle tracking and computer assisted dispatch that can track the closest vehicle to a call.
However, there still are challenges, she said, like recruitment and retention. Things are getting better, though, she added.
"We've gone from a position of being … on the lower end on the scale in Atlantic Canada, and sort of the immediate geographical market, to being pretty much at the top," Chisholm said. "So we expect that to play a huge role in shoring up our recruitment and our retention challenges."
Chisholm said final details are still being worked out, but the contract with Medavie will be performance-based with specific targets around things like competency, communication mechanisms and more.
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
With files from Troy Turner
