Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

City council agrees to advocate with province for funding for new GPFD idea

Sep 24, 2024 | 6:00 AM

Grande Prairie City Council has agreed to advocate with the province for funding for a new idea from the Grande Prairie Fire Department.

The Advance Life Support – Fire Paramedic Response Unit would see a firefighter and medic answering calls and providing care until EMS could get there.

Fire Chief Mark VanWerkhoven says the next step is to lobby the province for the money.

“What we’re finding, on occasion, is when the EMS system is challenged and that the demand is exceeding the available EMS resources or those resources are responding from places outside of the city, then we find our fire trucks and our firefighters are on scene for an extended period of time, providing that initial care.”

A report prepared by VanWerkhoven says the initial cost would be $250,000 to $500,000, with the ongoing cost $1.2 million to $1.6 million per year.

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It would also require the purchase of an SUV and hiring for eight full time equivalent jobs.

VanWerkhoven says his department studied both the number of calls that came in and how long the fire department spent on each one.

“Medical calls, typically, were high frequency but low time on task; few minutes here, five-ten minutes, of initial stabilization and assisting EMS and then that (call) clears up.”

“What we’ve found is those times were increasing quite significantly, in fact, approximately eight to 12 times what they were previously.”

Three other ides were also studied, including EMS training for all firefighters, establishing an Emergency Service Commission, and keeping things as they are now.

VanWerkhoven says there were several reasons for choosing to try this one.

“This is something that can be accomplished, contingent on appropriate funding, within a four to eight month time frame. Those other options were multi-year time frames.”

“This has a lower initial capital (cost) than some of those other options and it’s an entry point to a fully integrated or some manner of regional EMS model down the road.

City officials plan to bring this up with Alberta Minister of Health Adrianna LaGrange when the two sides meet at the Alberta Municipalities Convention this week in Red Deer.