The Citizen, 2002-01-09, Page 20$600,000 under the old system for
calls outside the county,"`he said.
Hambides explained to council that
among the total of 3,218 calls from
Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, there were 565
calls outside the county. The majority
of these were bringing patients back
from London though the Wingham
station did have 98 calls to Lucknow.
Councillor Neil Rintoul from
Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh ques-
tioned Hambides about how the
response times were arrived at. He
discussed one life-threatening call he
had personally been involved in
where one of the paramedics sat in
the ambulance cab doing paperwork
while the other attended the patient.
Hambides said the normal proce-
dure is for one paramedic to deal with
the patient immediately while the
other either assists or goes to get
needed equipment. He hoped the case
described was a rare one.
Other councillors questioned a
statement that a new policy had been
given to the London dispatch centre
that life-threatening calls within the
county should be answered by the
nearest ambulance (even if it's from
Lambton County, for instance) but
lower priority calls should wait until
a Huron County ambulance is avail-
able. Councillor Dave Urlin of South
Huron said members of the agricul-
ture, public works and seniors com-
mittee, which oversees the ambulance
service, didn't know about these poli-
cies.
"It would be nice if the committee
saw exactly what the policies are," he
said.
South Huron Councillor Rob
Morley agreed. "If employees are
making the policy we better take a
look at (the results) in Walkerton," he
said. "It's our neck that's on the line
in the long run."
In general, however, most council-
lors seemed pleased with the statistics
from the January to September period
of the operation.
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PAGE 20. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 2002.
Councillor doubts ambulance service on track
By Keith Roulston
Citizen publisher
A consultant's -report on the first
nine months' operation of Huron
County's ambulance service show:,
everything's on track, but one coun-
cillor questions the accuracy of the
figures.
In a presentation of a detailed 84-
page report that lasted nearly two
hours, Jon Hambides of Pomax Inc.
the consulting firm that designed the
system's operation, told county coun-
cil that in general the operation was
working as predicted and exceeding
provincial standards for response
times.
Hambides said travel times met the
county's standard of 15 minutes in 94
per cent of all high priority calls. The
county system also exceeded, in most
cases, the province's standards of
maintaining 1996 response times.
"You not only maintained 1996
response times but actually improved
them. I'm not sure if any other coun-
ty has experienced this," said
Hambides.
Hambides said analysis of the fig-
ures showed there were relatively few
instances when the paramedics had
an opportunity to use their increased
training to save lives. It may be that
the trained paramedics can use their
skills to help in other health-care
areas within the county, he said.
He also said that the use of 24-hour
staffing at the Clinton-Seaforth sta-
tion seemed to reduce the need for
staff call-ins in non-peak times
throughout the county creating the
benefit of better service within the
same budget.
But Paul Klopp, councillor for
Bluewater, said he frankly doubted
the statistics presented and couldn't
support the report.
"This should be put under fiction,
not fact," he said.
He warped councillors that they
were "just playing with fire" given
the fact that there were two fewer
ambulance stations in the county than
prior to the county takeover and that
when ambulances from one station
were covering for ambulances out on
call from another, a disaster could
occur.
"At the end of the day it's us who
are on the line," he warned.
Klopp also claimed that with the
reduction of calls the county service
made outside the county's borders,
the county had lost revenue by relo-
cating stations from Dashwood and
Zurich to Exeter and from Seaforth to
a location between Clinton and
Seaforth. "We were taking in about
Committees set
East Huron's Bernie MacLellan
and Central Huron's Carol Mitchell
will chair two of the county's three
standing committees for 2002.
MacLellan heads the agriculture,
public works and seniors committee
which also includes Bert Dykstra,
Central Huron; Paul Klopp,.
Bluewater; Keith Johnston, Morris-
Tumberry; Norm Fairies, Howick;
and Rob Morley, Huron South.
Mitchell heads the health and plan-
ning committee which also includes:
Bill Dowson, Bluewater; Doug
Layton, North Huron; Deb Shewfelt.
Goderich; Lin Steffler, Huron East
and Dave Urlin, South Huron.
The social and cultural service;
committee is headed by Dianne
Denomme of Bluewater and includes
Neil Rintoul, Ashfield-Colborne
Wawanosh; Murray Scott, Nortt
Huron; Joe Hogan, South Huron; anc
Ellen Connelly, Goderich.
Warden Ben Van Diepenbeek sits
on all committees.
Non-council members of the
library board include Robin Dunbar
of Ethel and Carol McDonnell of
Blyth.