We bring you a positively maddening story this week of a woman who spent more than five hours lying injured on a West Vancouver street because there were simply no paramedics available to help her. It’s the latest in a series of cases of BC Emergency Health Services being unable to deliver the level of care British Columbians expect.
Quite literally adding insult to injury, they still bill people $80 for their trip in an ambulance, no matter how long the sick and injured have been forced to wait.
It has never been explained to our satisfaction why paramedics have always been the poor cousin of the first responder family in B.C. They’re paid the least, they’re the first ones to burn out due to stress and there’s never enough of them – and that is under normal circumstances. Add in the opioid crisis, a global pandemic and a deadly heat wave, and it’s no wonder there’s no one there to answer the call.
The bottom line is things are this way because our provincial leaders, over many years and many governments, have deemed it acceptable.
One suggestion that’s been floated is giving fire crews – who are never short-staffed – the ability to transfer patients to the hospital. That would certainly cut down wait times but it would also start a pyrrhic and totally unnecessary turf war between first responders who are supposed to be on the same team. Far simpler would be funding paramedics like the equally important branch of emergency response that they are.
It’s time for the province to finally fix this broken system. Help the people who help us. It’s an emergency.
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