Paramedic services and ambulance continue to evolve

By Ken Waddell Neepawa Banner & Press

In the past few decades, the supply of paramedic services has evolved immensely.

In the 1950s in rural Manitoba, if an ambulance service existed, it was often run as a side business from the local funeral home. When an emergency call came in, if there was time, the sign on the station wagon might be changed, but everybody knew it was a hearse. One of the most famous ambulance/hearse combo units was the huge tail finned 1959 Cadillac station wagon. Such a vehicle today, in running condition is worth a lot of money as collector’s item.

Scharf’s Funeral Home in Holland, Manitoba had such an arrangement. The Holland facility was right across from the school I attended and we students would ponder which task was ahead as the garage doors opened and the vehicle headed out. If it went really fast, we knew it was likely an ambulance call.

By the 1980s, most towns had a separate ambulance service and usually volunteer ambulance attendants. The system worked well for the expectations of the time. Volunteers were sometimes people with formal medical training but sometimes they may have just had some life saving courses. The services were privately owned and operated, usually financed by fees and a municipal or town financial contribution.

As the cost of ambulances and equipment increased and the demand increased for better training, the evolution of ambulance services steadily moved away from local ownership to being taken over by the regional health authorities. The transition was an arduous process.

EMS in the present

Nowadays, ambulances are owned by the provincial government and regulated and operated by Shared Health. There are many ambulance garages around the province in many towns with full-time paid paramedics. In an interview with The Banner & Press, Callum Melvin, who coordinates ambulance services, said there was an announcement in 2018 that a number of ambulance garages would be closed due to low call volumes. Eleven were on that list from western Manitoba. Melvin said, “some are very close to each other”. Melvin explained the trend today is towards full-time highly trained paramedic staff, “It’s a full time career job.” That is in contrast to trained volunteers which have been the practice in many communities. Melvin explained that many of those trained volunteers have or are retiring after 25-30 years of service. Due to staffing shortages and low call volumes at some EMS stations, calls may no longer be answered by local stations but from a centralized, larger station.

According to Melvin, ambulance crews may be dispatched from one town to be on standby in or near another town if the one or two ambulances are already on a call. “We try to utilize ambulances and crews to keep waiting times as low as possible,” said Melvin. He added, “The level of critical care is higher than it used to be and crews may be answering a call within a wider range.

As to which EMS stations will be closed is still in process. Although call volumes were not released to The Banner & Press, it seems that there may be a few new stations built in strategic locations, there could well be a number that will close and vehicles and staff centralized.