'I was in the middle of real pain, and that was stressful,' said Quadra Island resident Carol Woolsey.
Quadra Island resident Carol Woolsey had the misfortune of experiencing a medical emergency in her rural community last month after the last ferry had sailed for the night.
It took at least an hour before paramedics came to provide medical care, and the trip to the hospital in Campbell River — just three kilometres across the water on Vancouver Island — took about another half-hour, Woolsey said.“I was in the middle of real pain, and that was stressful.” No local paramedics on multiple occasions Three of the four scheduled on-call staff positions at the Quadra paramedic station are vacant — two since the fall of 2021 and the other since May 2022, a freedom-of-information request by Canada’s National Observer shows.
Rural paramedic shortages on the mend, BCEHS says While vacancies on Quadra Island have been acute, a new labour agreement is expected to improve staffing on Quadra and in rural communities provincewide, BCEHS told Canada’s National Observer. Under the current SOC system, paramedics are scheduled to work an eight-hour shift but must remain on call for a further 16 hours — for a total of 24 hours daily over a three-day rotation. This ties up staff for a full three days but potentially only pays them full wages for one, unless they respond to emergencies while on call.
Weather and availability permitting, a water taxi in Campbell River is called out on an ad hoc basis if a patient needs transport off-island at night since BC Ferries’ own staffing crisis means vessels can’t run outside of scheduled hours, Greenhill said. “It puts pressure on those [firefighter] resources, and it’s absolutely not what they are there for,” Clifford said.
Gabriola Island, Bella Coola and B.C. Interior communities such as Alexis Creek and Clinton are some of the communities being considered, he said.
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