The province of Quebec has effectively benched its first responders.
Since September, new rules from Santé Québec mean that dispatchers have stopped deploying first responders to calls in which there is no evident immediate danger to the caller’s life.
According to reporting from Radio-Canada last week, medical situations no longer deserving of first responders could include conditions related to a fall, abnormal breathing, suicidal intent, or the activation of medical alert devices – situations in which there is still a risk of the condition getting worse, but the dispatcher deems, over the phone, that no first-aid intervention could improve survival rates. Not to worry, though, the province has set 30 minutes as its response time goal for non-life threatening injuries.
So if you have fallen and are in pain, or are unable to get up, but a dispatcher has determined that you’re not about to die, you’re going to wait at least 30 minutes. What happens if you’ve hit your head, and perhaps didn’t realize it? Or if you have pain in your chest, or are having a hard time breathing, but don’t know the cause?
As much as we’d like to pretend otherwise, most of us are not medical professionals capable of properly assessing the severity of our own conditions. Communicating the exact nature of pain is difficult, and leaves people vulnerable to the interpretation of dispatchers.
The ambiguity of this process was previously addressed by having first responders sent to the scene to do a proper in-person assessment while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. No, these people are not doctors, but they are trained in advanced first-aid, and can do a lot to help stabilize a person, calm them down, gather more information about their condition and perform critical first-aid if needed.
Many first responders are volunteers. These are people willing to drop what they’re doing and show up by a neighbour’s side to help them get through a tough moment. And now, the province is telling these people to stand down in all but the life-threatening emergencies.
And how about that 30-minute ambulance response target? According to CISSSO, average wait time for Priority 1 calls in Thorne over the past two years is 23 minutes. But just last week THE EQUITY published a story about a mother in Thorne who waited 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive after her son started having seizures. Thorne is currently without a first responder service, but had it had one, would it have been used in this case? And how are residents to trust that if a first responder won’t be deployed, an ambulance will indeed arrive in 30 minutes?
Santé Québec told Radio-Canada this change in first responder deployment protocol was made to optimize the use of limited resources, particularly in rural areas, and to reduce the risks associated with unnecessary emergency drives. This response offers yet another reminder of how out of touch the province is with the realities of rural areas, where many people live up to an hour from a hospital, but likely much closer to a trained first-responder.
This is healthcare we’re talking about. Baked into the term we use to refer to this service is a concept Santé Québec seems to have lost touch with. Care isn’t simply a diagnosis or a surgical procedure or writing a prescription. Care is holding someone, talking to them, answering their questions, helping them feel safe. This approach may sound laughable given the current state of our healthcare system, especially in the Outaouais, where we often don’t have enough nurses to keep our operating rooms open. But in this context, first responders are a low-cost way to provide critical care, or simply help people feel cared for when they’re at their most vulnerable. Why demote them?
