Ambulance issues under microscope

The New Brunswick government has released a discussion paper on the province’s ambulance service, but the opposition parties say action is needed to address a shortage of paramedics and a decline in response times.

There has been a growing number of public complaints about ambulance delays, especially in rural areas.

The 37-page report, released Wednesday, says a majority of the 101 vacant paramedic jobs have bilingualism as a requirement.

A court decision last year ordered the officially bilingual province to provide bilingual paramedic services, but this spring an adjudicator took a different view, saying that service in the language of choice didn’t have to be immediate, and could be handled through the use of a translation service by phone.

The Liberal government then asked for a judicial review, which will be heard in January.

But Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs said solutions can be found by getting all the parties together to negotiate.

“We don’t need more committees,” Higgs said. “We just need to sit in a room with the managers of Ambulance New Brunswick, some paramedics, a good cross section of people on the political side, and let’s just get this resolved.”

Tuesday’s throne speech said a legislature committee would be asked to complete a public review of the ambulance service by Dec. 15.

Premier Brian Gallant said the committee can make recommendations, but he believes the courts must resolve the language issue.

“We don’t want to go against an arbitrator,” Gallant said. “We don’t want to go against the court. The advice we were given was that if we went against the court, we could be in contempt of court. So we asked for a review.”

But Higgs said negotiating a solution would eliminate the need for a judicial review.

“If you resolve the problem, the court issue becomes irrelevant,” he said.

Green Leader David Coon said the government should cancel the current ambulance management contract.

“It’s time that both extra-mural and Ambulance New Brunswick be brought under the regional health authorities, and cancel the contracts they have with Medavie. It’s clear they are not working. The management is not functioning,” Coon said.