THE MARITIMES SCANNING SITE

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND AMBULANCE and HOSPITAL SERVICES
© 2008, MARITIMES SCANNING SITE, all rights reserved

Last updated: February 9, 2008

The following description is under construction in February 2008 and is substantially written by a contributing paramedic who is also a knowledgeable scanner user, with contributions from other listeners.   This page is structured similarly to those for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.  More information or clarification is required in a number of subject areas.  This includes:  a list of ambulance stations, a list of PEI hospitals, use of various radio channels, and information re specialized vehicles.

Land ambulance services on Prince Edward Island are provided to the province though a single company named “Island EMS” which has a long term contract with Emergency Medical Care Inc, a subsidiary of Medavie Blue Cross which also manages ambulance services in both Nova Scotia (EHS) and New Brunswick (Ambulance New Brunswick )  Click here for Nova Scotia ambulance page, and here for the New Brunswick page.

This new company came on line on Prince Edward Island on April 1st 2007, providing the first province-wide ambulance service on PEI.  Prior to April 1st, there were 6 different ambulance services, either being private for profit or private not for profit:

• Fraser's Ambulance Service

• Kings County EMS Ambulance Service

• Neil's Ambulance Service

• Rooney's Ambulance Service

• Royal Ambulance Service

• West Prince Ambulance Service 

Skills, protocols, equipment and dispatching services varied from service to service.  Fleet management and maintenance of the province's approximately 16 ambulances varied from service to service. There was no inter-regional cooperation or organization.  For example if an Neil's ambulance from  was to take a patient to Summerside, the transfer was done by a Neil's truck; the patient was dropped off and the Neil's truck simply drove home to Charlottetown. They were not required to check in with dispatch to see if they were needed in the Summerside area for coverage.  Essentially they could be driving right by a 911 call and not even know it…Or on the way home empty to Charlottetown drive right though a town which at the moment might not have an ambulance available because it was already on a call. This was common practice among every service in PEI as they were not paid to provide ambulance service to another town. Today it is different…

 The Ambulance system today….

Emergency Medical Care Inc manages for Island EMS one fleet of approximately 20 – 25 ambulances.  Ambulances are stationed throughout the province but can be moved around at a moment's notice when the need arises -- this is the advantage of having a single system.

Today every paramedic on PEI works for Emergency Medical Care Inc under the name Island EMS similar to  their counterparts in NS only under the name EHS. This is slightly different from paramedics in New Brunswick who are provincial government employees working for a company named NB EMS under the name Ambulance New Brunswick, however EMC Inc still manages day to day operations in NB, they are not just paid by EMC like NS, and PEI paramedics.

On PEI  paramedics all wear the same uniform, drive trucks with the same logos, (Photo)

There is one system of ground ambulances and bases; however these are divided into administration areas for the purposes of supervision, for day to day maintenance. The administrative areas would be the local towns or cities.  For example there would be a supervisor for greater Charlottetown, Summerside, etc. who would answer to the general manager for the province who is Craig Pierre (former owner/manager of the now obsolete Moncton Ambulance Service).  There may be supervisors covering more then one area.

With every ambulance working for the same service it is now common practice for units from other areas be tasked to assist all over the province. For example, If a patient is being transported to Charlottetown from Souris, once the unit drops off the patient they may be tasked to stay in Charlottetown if it is busy and they are depleted on units. This is another advantage of having one system. Units are also moved in for “coverage” if the need arises. If Charlottetown gets really busy and is short on ambulances, “Control” will have a unit from possibly Stratford “post” to Charlottetown and may also have a unit from Cornwall post to Charlottetown and so on… This happens all over the province as the need arises. The ambulances work on a string effect…when one unit moves, units in surrounding areas move to provide the best possible coverage. It is now not uncommon for someone to call 911 and have an ambulance from anywhere in the province respond to their call for help if they are the closest available unit with this new system. Ambulances are tracked by dispatch with GPS systems with which ambulances are being equipped with to ease the delivery of service especially with out of town crews possibly responding in areas they are not familiar with.

Ambulances are identified by double digit numbers in the 10's to 40's range.

Ambulance numbers are not associated with a specific station as the fleet managers move units around as necessary for maintenance and in “hand-offs”.  A hand-off may occur in unusually long-haul transfers such as East Point to Halifax or Moncton. An Ambulance from somewhere near the other end of PEI will leave and head towards East Point who is on their way towards the bridge, they will meet somewhere in the middle and “hand-off” the truck and patient to the other crew to finish the trip, making the trip shorter for both crews. Now the truck that was once in East Point will now be in whatever area the other truck came from and vice versa…This is possible because every ambulance is equipped the exact same all over PEI. The only difference is the 2 digit #.

Ambulances for Island EMS are produced by Tri-Star industries in Yarmouth NS. This is the same company that supplies Nova Scotia EHS with ambulances, in fact they are the same units only they are striped to reflect Island EMS colors. There are however some old Malley units from the old operators still in use on PEI only with the new colors. These will be phased out eventually so only Tri-Star units exist on PEI. 

There is two types of ambulances operating on PEI:

Type II -  Ford van conversions

Type III – Ford cube style units     both types appear in this photo

Patient Transfer Units :   Dedicated, purposely equipped units are not thought to exist as of yet. These units may be instituted in the future. Regular ambulances may be tasked for PTU duties, for part or all of a shift.

Supervisor units: These units are Ford Explorer units equipped with all the same medical gear as an ambulance with the exception of a stretcher and are driven by senior level paramedics. They are identified as S1, S2, S3 etc…

Administrative units: Tentative information: These are Ford mini-vans, white with a blue and gold stripe along the sides.  They are marked with a two-digit number and are used to carry management around the province.  They are not equipped with emergency gear, but do have a yellow LED light in the back window. Possibly only 1 or 2 currently in use within PEI to date.  Photo.

Medical Command Post Vehicle:  Not thought to exist as of yet. There will be a command post in the future.

Maintenance Services:  There is a fleet centre for PEI. The location of this fleet center is unknown at this time. The fleet centers are where all spare trucks for the region are stored, and of course where maintenance is done.   There are not thought to be dedicated mobile maintenance/mechanical vehicles.

Ambulance bases

Bases or Stations around the province are mostly the same bases that were in use with the former individual private services however in the future as the need arises, new bases will be built. Some bases may have more the one unit stationed there or the area could have “posts” scattered throughout the city to expand the coverage area.

Crew Shifts and Accomodations:  

Shifts are either 12 hour or 24 hour, and vary by base.  24 hour shifts are in place in most rural areas in which it is determined that calls for service are generally at a low enough level that crews can sleep during the shift.   It is not known if there is a mandated time of the day in which sleeping is permitted. 24 hr bases are equipped with bed.  In other locations, which have 12 hour shifts, there are no beds as sleeping is not permitted at a 12 hr base. All bases have a kitchen, couches, chairs, as well as cable or satellite TV, there is also a computer with blocked high-speed internet.

Air Ambulance :

Currently there is no designated air ambulance system for PEI. At this time the requests for service are handled by both Ambulance New Brunswick Air Care 1 and EHS Life Flight depending on the type of patient and patient destination. 

Medical First Response (MFR): 

Often you will hear that fire is also being dispatched to the scene of an emergency for medical assistance.  This is where trained personnel, usually in fire departments, are dispatched where it is thought that they could be on the scene before the responding ambulance.  In some cases these personnel are trained paramedics themselves or they might have received training in some basic but important lifesaving techniques.  This is particularly useful in rural areas where the fire personnel might be much closer to the scene.   In rural areas you will often hear both agencies being dispatched and arriving at nearly the same time, or even the ambulance arriving before the fire truck.  It is quite interesting in these cases of dual dispatch to hear the lag in time between one dispatch and the other!   The other interesting fact is that both might be coming from the same station (in cases where the ambulance is based at a fire station). When the need for MFR arises, Ambulance Dispatch contacts the appropriate fire dept to have them respond. This is done by the FRCO (First Response Communications Officer) if one is in place. Otherwise the 911 operator (call-taker) will make that judgment.

OLMC:

Paramedics are also able to access the services of an over-the-air physician who may give special advice and also give permission for the administering of certain drugs or to instruct with unusual procedures.  This service is called OLMC (On-line medical control).  This can be done over the radio with a patch to directly to the doctor or the requesting crew can call a special 1-888 number to make contact with the on duty physician.

Contact with ER:

Ambulances coming into the ER with a patient will contact the ER directly by radio to give them a brief story about their patient they are bringing in so the staff can prepare accordingly for their arrival. This is done on a separate radio channel to eliminate radio traffic on the dispatch channel. 

Dispatch and Communications:

Island EMS dispatch is located at Message Centre PEI who in the past dispatched four of the 6 ambulance services.  Dispatch is referred to as “Control”.  Every ambulance on PEI maintains contact with “Control” on Channel 1. This is where all dispatching of emergency and non-emergency requests for ambulances will take place.  Dispatching takes place on the Provincial Integrated Communications (PICS) system. Every emergency call is dispatched with an alert tone followed by the unit number assigned, address of the call and eventually the details of the call. Paramedics are also equipped with alpha-numeric pagers which also give the address of the call as a backup.

A hot call with “lights and sirens” is referred to as “Code 2” ; whereas a cold call with “no lights or sirens is referred to as “Code 1” .   Note that this is opposite to the designations in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

For more information on PICS, including frequencies for each site, click here.    Talkgroups used by the ambulance system are outlined below.

More information is required regarding the use of the on-call and tactical channels, including more specific designations for channels 5 and 6 (Tac 1 and Tac 2??).

While it is relatively common for PEI units to go to Halifax and Moncton, it is not known if they have capability to operate on the radio systems in those areas for hospital check-in.   Despite the fact that the three provincial ambulance systems ultimately have the same management, there is no arrangement or capability for out of province units to operate in the other provinces other than if they happen upon an emergency scene.

Note :  It is heavily rumored that the province of NB will have a brand new Radio system in the next 3 to 5 years which will include a MAJOR upgrade with ambulance services to be a major consideration when it comes time for implementation. It is also heavily rumored that this will be tied in with the NS radio system which also is due to be changed in 3-5 years…One would think they would also change the radio system in PEI to allow all 3 provinces to have an intergraded radio system, especially with ambulances from all provinces traveling out of province daily. This will allow for Inter-Province operations. Who knows, some day if you call 911 in PEI you may have an Ambulance NB unit respond if they are the closest ambulance!...... Stay Tuned!