The Ontario Fire Service and EMS
Ontarians' rely on a pre-hospital emergency medical services (EMS) system that is clearly struggling to meet their needs. In recent years, governments have significantly increased funding for EMS delivery and seen little or no improvement to the response time problems that currently plague the system.
This is not the fault of the emergency responders or paramedics. Ontario's paramedics are highly skilled professionals that as emergency responders have the ability to save many Ontarians' lives when treating out of hospital medical emergencies.
Currently Ontario has one of the worst survivability rates for out of hospital cardiac events in North America. Ontario's fire services are trained in a wide variety of emergency response disciplines beyond just fighting fires. Our training includes advanced emergency response first aid, CPR, defibrillation, and in some areas other life saving techniques.
Research on patient survivability, time and time again, has shown that what occurs in the first few minutes after the onset of a medical emergency will have a direct effect on the long term outcome of the patient. During the mid 1990's, as a result of The
Ontario Pre-Hospital Advanced Life Support Study (OPALS), Ontario's fire service became a critical part of the response to a variety of medical emergencies. The OPALS study recognizes that rapid defibrillation, by police or fire, etc, within 8 minutes
increases chances of survival by 3 times.
The OPFFA believes that rapid, efficient and effective delivery of emergency medical response means sending the nearest trained personnel to the scene of an emergency. The fire service is already strategically placed to respond rapidly to fires or other emergency situations and as documented in the OPALS study can positively
affect the outcome of medical emergencies.
There have been recent moves by EMS providers and unions to prevent the utilization of the fire service for medical responses. We believe the fire service can improve the current situation faced by many areas across the province which will result in improved emergency medical responses to Ontario's citizens.
Currently the OPFFA and the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs (OAFC) are advocating for simultaneous dispatch for all life threatening emergencies as a major first step in saving more Ontarian's lives.
This is not about taking over jobs, services, or union members - this is about saving lives!
June 2009