'Someone is going to die': N.S. fire chief calls for better communication among emergency agencies

The chief of a rural Nova Scotia fire department is sounding the alarm over what he calls poor communication between agencies during an emergency, saying it could cost someone's life.

Chris Wolfe, chief of the North Queens Fire Association in Caledonia, N.S., took to social media last week to warn residents that his department was not being notified of emergencies in its coverage area while some people waited hours for ambulances to arrive.

"Someone is going to die because of poor communication and structure within our health-care system," Wolfe said in a Facebook post Sunday.

The province's ambulance provider, Emergency Health Services (EHS), has a program called Medical First Responders, which allows eligible first responders like firefighters to provide care to someone who is injured or in distress.

Wolfe said his department has 18 first responders and staff certified under the program who can respond to pretty much any medical call, but they're being left out of the loop.

"It's not a new problem," he told CBC Radio Mainstreet host Jeff Douglas on Tuesday. "But definitely over the last three or four years, things have progressed and gotten a lot worse."

Most of Nova Scotia's fire departments offer some kind of medical first response, including first aid. 

Wolfe said the majority of calls the North Queens Fire Association responds to in a year are medical calls, and the department has a new $750,000 rescue truck that's equipped to transport people to a hospital.

Emergency Medical Care, the private company contracted by EHS to operate its ambulance service and medical communications centre, said participants in the Medical First Responders program choose the types of calls they are notified of.

These "agencies are notified of calls that align with their chosen response levels," the company said in an emailed statement.

The company added that it would work with the North Queens Fire Association to address its concerns.

Wolfe said he plans to hold a public meeting next month and invite representatives from Emergency Health Services and Emergency Medical Care as well as Health Minister Michelle Thompson and the area's MLA, Kim Masland.

"To try to establish why this is happening and where we go from here to correct the problem," he said.