BARRHEAD – Would there be a liability concern if the Barrhead Regional Fires Services (BRFS) had to transport a patient to the hospital?
It’s a question Town of Barrhead Coun. Don Smith raised during the Dec. 13 council meeting, noting the municipality needs an answer before local firefighters are forced to transport a patient due to a lack of an available ambulance crews.
"Would there be any liability concerns about doing something like that," he said.
Smith referred to the letter they received from the Town of Ponoka's mayor Kevin Ferguson outlining a situation where their firefighters decided to transport a critically injured patient to the hospital via a pickup truck with the aid of a police escort rather than wait for 45 minutes for an ambulance from Leduc.
Smith has been one of council's most vehement proponents for the need for the province to improve EMS ambulance service and for the need for Alberta Health Services (AHS) to compensate municipalities when their fire services respond to medical assistance calls.
Chief administrative officer Edward LeBlanc admitted he did not know the answer.
He said there was an incident where AHS told BRFS and the ambulance service that they could not transport a deceased individual to the hospital as it was up to the medical examiner.
Coun. Ty Assaf, who appeared via teleconference, asked if there are any liability or legal issues if AHS or an EMS crew asks a BRFS firefighter to drive the ambulance, noting it does occur.
"(BRFS members) are not employed by AHS," he said.
Smith agreed, noting when he served with the fire department in the early 90s to early 2000s, firefighters were often asked to drive the ambulance to the hospital.
"Because the EMTs were in the back tending to the patients," he said. "I would hope there is no issue, but what happens if the ambulance gets into an accident when one of our members is driving? We don't want to stop looking after our community, but we need to protect ourselves."
Coun. Dausen Kluin suggested they check with Woodlands County as the Fort Assiniboine fire department has a fully equipped ambulance unit.
"I don't know how they got around it, but when I was a kid growing up in the Fort, the fire department would often take a patient and meet the ambulance from Barrhead to help save time."
Mayor Dave McKenzie suggested that the Fort Assiniboine fire department did not find a way around it, but rather "just did what they felt was necessary".
"Unfortunately in this day and age, it behoves us to find out what our liability is," he said.
To get clarification, Woodlands County councillors invited representatives of Alberta’s Medical First Response program, Blaine Barody and Rob Barone, to a May 2018 meeting to answer questions on how the hamlet's fire department could transport patients.
Unfortunately, the pair did not have good news for councillors.
As of March 2018, Barody said there were 277 agencies in Alberta certified to provide Medical First Response (MFR) service, and the vast majority are municipal fire services.
“Each agency chooses a level of service, identifying the maximum level they are able to support,” Barody said, defining MFR as agencies equipped and trained to provide medical patient care and dispatched through the 911 system. “When we talk about a medical first response, it is important to note that it doesn’t involve the transportation of a patient in any shape or form. That is a completely different role and agreement with Alberta Health Services.”
Barone, the executive director of EMS agreed, saying Alberta Transportation and the Emergency Health Services Act, which falls under the umbrella of Alberta Health, governs the rules for transporting patients.
“Under Alberta Health, which is the registrar of ambulances, you need to be registered, licenced and under contract with Alberta Health Services.”
However, he did note that the Emergency Medical Aid Act (also known as the Good Samaritan’s Act) allowed people to stop to help someone on the side of the road and take them to the hospital, as long as they felt it was in their best interest.
“But as soon as you deliberately set up a system, anticipating, preparing and responding to an event, I’m not sure how the licensing bodies of Alberta Health would look at that.”
