An eight-month-old baby died Thursday in a small community in interior British Columbia. At the time of death, there was no ambulance service in the city.
The president of the union representing paramedics in British Columbia said the call came in Thursday evening about an infant in cardiac arrest in the Barrière district, about a 45-minute drive north of Kamloops.
Troy Clifford, president of Ambulance Paramedics of BC, said the ambulance that would normally serve the district was instead in Kamloops, helping to fill a staffing shortage there.
The district mayor told CTV News that an eight-month-old baby died. He also said local authorities were not regularly notified of ambulance staff issues and stressed that he did not want to speculate that response time was a factor in the child’s death.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if we didn’t have ambulance service on Thursday night because we have significant gaps in service,” Barrière Mayor Ward Stamer said.
“We know of cases where people got into serious trouble and died because the ambulance was not there in other communities,” he added. “I don’t want us to be in this situation, guessing, when we should have the level of support that everyone in the province deserves.”
On two recent occasions, residents of Ashcroft, British Columbia – another small inland town – have died while waiting for ambulance service.
On August 14, a man went into cardiac arrest just 200 yards from that community’s ambulance station, but the nearest ambulance didn’t arrive for 29 minutes, according to Ashcroft Mayor Barbara Roden . The man did not survive.
Four weeks before this incident, an elderly person from Ashcroft died after going into cardiac arrest at a time when the local emergency room was closed due to understaffing and an available ambulance was in a other community.
In response to the Barriere incident, British Columbia Emergency Health Services released a statement confirming that the appeal is under review.
“Our deepest condolences go out to the family and community for this heartbreaking loss,” the statement read.
“The nearest available ambulance was immediately dispatched and the local fire department was asked to assist. We have opened a review and will work with the Office of Patient Care Quality to contact this family to address any questions. concern or question she may have.”
BCEHS did not respond to multiple inquiries from CTV News about the distance to the nearest available ambulance at the time, or how long it took to arrive.