Red Deer’s 911 service already meets or exceeds new provincial standards for emergency dispatchers in the province, says a local EMS manager.
Cindy Sparrow, assistant deputy chief for Red Deer’s Emergency Services, said the new provincial standards released this week are needed to ensure “we are all working from the same playbook,” and that all Alberta get the same prompt service, regardless of where they live.
But as far as the Red Deer’s 911-service is concerned, Sparrow said “we’re already meeting the new standards.”
The province is requiring that all 911 dispatchers answer calls within 15 seconds. If emergency calls need to be transferred to police or elsewhere, this should happen within one minute of answering, 95 per cent of the time.
Red Deer’s 911 dispatchers were already working under internal performance targets of answering all calls within 10 seconds, 90 per cent of the time, said Sparrow.
While local metrics for call transfers were only recently measured in Red Deer, the local 911 dispatchers were already showing the 60-second transfer time is achievable, she added.
Red Deer’s 911 service also has a secondary power source available in case of emergency, as well as a call centre from outside the area which would answer Central Alberta’s 911 calls in case a disaster shuts down the local dispatch centre — both of these are provincial standards. (Sparrow said the Foothills regional 911 service would step in.)
About 146,000 emergency calls were answered by the Red Deer 911 service over the past year — and the number grows along with the region’s population.
Sparrow noted that the city service — which usually runs with six or seven dispatchers on shift — responds to police, fire and medical emergency calls from Wetaskiwin to Airdrie (excepting Rocky View County, but including Brooks), as well as from the national park boundary to the Saskatchewan border.
“Time is of the essence, so we always ensure that calls are answered promptly.”
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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