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'It puts the lives of the paramedics, patients, and the travelling public at risk.' - NAPE president Carol Furlong.
St. John's (8 July 2009) - The Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE/NUPGE) is raising concerns about a shortage of roadworthy ambulances for the area covered by the Health Science Centre (HSC) ambulance service.
The service is part of the Eastern Health region.
NAPE president Carol Furlong says HSC can no longer provide the level of service Eastern Health has committed to provide residents of the Northeast Avalon Peninsula. As a result, the centre has had fewer ambulances in service "several times over the last six months" than should have been operating, she notes.
"These shortages have been allowed to occur despite the fact that the number of ambulance runs has increased by 25.9% in the past two years. In some cases, back-up had to be provided by the Conception Bay South ambulance service, resulting in longer wait times and potentially leaving the Conception Bay South area short of ambulances,” Furlong says.
“The system would have been running short more often, except that on several occasions paramedics have been sent out on the road in ambulances with serious deficiencies. This year alone paramedics have driven one ambulance without functioning airbags for four days and another in which the brakes and drive shaft weren’t working properly for six days. Deficiencies in ambulances is a serious matter as is demonstrated by the recent incident in which an ambulance on the Northern Peninsula caught fire.”
Furlong says allowing paramedics to work in such unsafe ambulances is clearly unacceptable.
"It puts the lives of the paramedics, patients, and the travelling public at risk. Several of the nine HSC ambulances have repeatedly proven to be unreliable," she adds.
"NAPE is calling on Eastern Health to take action on this issue and increase the number of roadworthy ambulances."
The area covered by the HSC service stretches from Pouch Cove to Topsail Hill Road in Paradise and Witless Bay, including all points in between. It includes roughly 200,000 people, taking into account students and people who commute to work in the area.
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The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE