City, province reach deal to provide ambulance services in Winnipeg
Article content
The Manitoba government reached a new five-year agreement with the City of Winnipeg to provide emergency medical response services.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
City, province reach deal to provide ambulance services in Winnipeg Back to video
The deal has been a long time coming, Premier Heather Stefanson said during a news conference Wednesday. Stefanson was joined by Mayor Scott Gillingham as well as Health Minister Audrey Gordon and Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service Chief Christian Schmidt to make the announcement.
The deal covers a period of five years, between May 10, 2023, and Dec. 31, 2027, with an option to extend in five-year terms. The baseline funding for 2023 will be $54 million, Stefanson said. That money includes $2.1 million for cost recovery.
The agreement will add two 24-7 staffed ambulances and cost-recovery certainty to the city and WFPS for services provided on an annual basis. The agreement also adds 20 new paramedics to the city’s ranks.
“It’s a win-win deal that shows what we can achieve when we work together with a shared commitment to our people and fiscal responsibility,” Gillingham said in a release.
Schmidt said that the WFPS employs roughly 650 specialized paramedics who can respond to medical emergencies. In 2022, WFPS handled around 165,000 medical responses, which includes 911 calls, inter-facility transports and patient interactions, which is an average of 450 patient interactions a day.
“Some of that help came from paramedics and an ambulance,” Schmidt said. “Some came from a firefighter primary care paramedic. Some came from a patient’s home or a community organization, or over the phone provided by a trusted community paramedic.”
The new additions will greatly help the service address the “significant increase” in calls,” Schmidt added.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Manitoba NDP released documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests that show rural Manitoba has lost 87 paramedics since 2020-21. Documents from Shared Health show 704 paramedics working in 2020-21 and 617 in 2022-23.
In April 2023, 99% of Allied Health Professionals voted to strike.
Rural paramedics have been working without a contract since 2017. In April, the Winnipeg Sun reported that paramedics are dealing with severe staff shortages, employee burnout and unsustainable workloads.
“We are no farther ahead with staffing despite hiring a few people, because we have had many more quit in the same time,” said one paramedic in an email to the Sun.
NDP leader Wab Kinew said in a release that solutions have been brought to the table, but the Premier and health minister have “refused to act.” Kinew said his party would give rural paramedics a fair deal and pay them the same wages as Winnipeg paramedics.
rstelter@postmedia.com
Twitter: @steltsy94
To sign up for Ryan’s weekly newsletter GIMME STELTER, click here.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.