Paramedics union asks Burnaby to lobby BC government amid bargaining

The Ambulance Paramedics of BC (APBC) is asking Burnaby and other municipalities to put pressure on the provincial government for more resources, as the union continues bargaining for a new collective agreement with the Health Employers Association of BC.

APBC president Troy Clifford appeared as a delegation at this week’s council meeting to push for support from the city. Clifford said the APBC represents about 4,600 paramedics and dispatchers across the province.

Clifford told council members that while ambulance response times have been a rising issue in the Lower Mainland for years, the problem has gotten markedly worse.

“Last summer we really saw things come to a head with the heat dome. Those of us that worked and lived through that—there were questions about the ambulance service’s response, their preparedness,” he said.

“Not only us, but the public did, the media did. And we know how many people died in that tragic week.”

The provincial government acted to overhaul BC Emergency Health Services in the weeks after the heat dome and following searing criticism of the agency’s response to the disaster.

Clifford noted that as one of the measures announced, the Ministry of Health committed to achieving the national benchmark for ambulance response times in urban centres—8.59 minutes for the most urgent calls.

Wait times in Burnaby have consistently been some of the longest of major cities in BC, with the average patient waiting close to 11 minutes for paramedics in an urgent call. Clifford said that wait times in Burnaby have not improved since the system overhaul last year.

And he noted that while 8.59 minutes is considered a benchmark, even that is still not ideal.

“Although that’s a national threshold, 8.59 minutes in an emergency when you’re waiting with a loved one who’s in cardiac arrest or having a stroke is an eternity,” he told councillors on Monday.

“So why that’s relevant for Burnaby is—Burnaby is a growing community that’s not meeting the national benchmarks for metro and urban centres.”

Clifford said Burnaby faces a particular challenge around response times because there’s only one ambulance station in the city—something he’s been raising concerns about since a second station was closed in 2020.

“Those of us that know Burnaby very well know that you can’t get to the corners or most areas of Burnaby in 8.59 minutes from our station on Imperial.”

He said while the pandemic and opioid crisis certainly put pressure on the ambulance service to respond to more calls in tougher conditions, they were not the root cause of the issue.

“Those were all things that have been going on for a long time. Call volume’s been going up, there’s more people in the communities needing more care. Seniors are living at home,” Clifford said.

“A million people not having a family doctor—people are sicker at home, not able to get their prescriptions—that’s putting pressure on the health-care system.”

While he lauded the provincial government for recent investments into the ambulance service—noting that the proportion of paramedics working full-time rather than part-time has more than doubled since last year—Clifford said there had been no investments or added stations in the 15 years prior.

“So the last couple of years has almost been a perfect storm of exposing how underfunded we are.”

Mayor Mike Hurley thanked Clifford for his presentation and agreed that Burnaby, along with many other jurisdictions, is not meeting the recognized standards to ensure people are taken care of during emergencies.

Clifford is asking the city to lobby the provincial government and “hold it accountable” to ensure Burnaby is able to receive the service levels its residents deserve.

“We’re on a path and there is an acknowledgement from the government to keep doing this stuff, and I think that’s where the pressure from municipalities can say: ‘What about us? We’re not meeting what you say are the standards for your community,'” Clifford told councillors.

“We have a duty and we support it through our first responder programs and our relationships with community response and all that sort of stuff, but we need to make sure we have enough ambulances to do the calls for our citizens and patients.”