The BC Ambulance Service is bleeding... badly. Due to a continued lack of funding, the BC Ambulance Service has not been able to keep pace with the growth and the pre-hospital needs of the Province of British Columbia. There is an increasing shortage of ambulances, paramedics and related infrastructure in B.C. These shortages translate to delays in emergency responses and the lives of the people of BC being put at risk.
The current issues that threaten the state of BC Ambulance are:
The BC Ambulance Service currently employs approximately 3400 paramedics who provide emergency pre-hospital care to the 3.4 million residents and visitors of BC. The paramedics provide care in the 944,735 square kilometers of diverse geographical terrain that makes up BC.
The population of BC is growing steadily each year, with the elderly (65+) population increasing even more rapidly. This growth is reflected in large increases in ambulance call volumes and emergency room visits annually in all areas of the province. Over the 2000/2001 fiscal period, BCAS responded to 430,144 ambulance calls. Five years later in the 2005/2006 fiscal period, BCAS responded to 579,519 ambulance calls in the province of BC and those numbers continue to climb.
In urban and metro areas, there are not enough ambulances to handle the daily call volumes. Ambulances from nearby communities are frequently required to respond to emergencies to handle the growing call volumes. This means ambulances are traveling great distances to attend emergency calls, which increases response times. In rural and remote areas there are not enough paramedics to staff the ambulances. This also translates into delayed response times to emergency calls, which is costing lives.
BC Ambulance target response time for high acuity calls is less than 9 minutes. As you can see in this graph, this target is achieved less than 10% of the time in Remote designated stations. With only just over 50% of responses falling within the target in metropolitan areas, the Ambulance Paramedics of BC think that British Columbians deserve much more.
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