PROBLEM CORRECTED
Incident that sent ambulance drivers to wrong home fixed, according to EHS
Elderly man will no longer have to wait hours for an ambulance.
Emergency Health Services says it has corrected a problem that saw an injured elderly man wait hours for their service as ambulances searched for his home.
In a letter to the editor printed on March 10 by the Cape Breton Post, Dana McEachren wrote about an accident involving Ron Whitfield, his neighbour on Malcolms Road, just off the Brickyard Road, that left the elderly man waiting for EHS service for several hours.
Last week’s incident saw Whitfield, who is in his 70s, slip on ice and break his hip as he was walking his dog.
The man crawled for two hours before two neighbours came to his rescue.
After a 911 call was made, the man still waited for more than two hours for emergency service.
“I had to leave work and drive from Sydney and got there about the same time as the ambulance did,” McEachren wrote. “The ambulance should have been there long before I was. However, again they went down Florence Lane.”
This was not the first time this elderly man waited a lengthy amount of time for ambulance service and follows a 2012 incident where it took more than three hours to find his address.
It is believed that GPS tracking in both cases sent the EHS drivers down the wrong lane.
After the first incident, McEachren was informed that GPS told EHS drivers to go down Florence Lane, which in prior years had access to Malcolms Lane.
“The Emergency Health Services attendants were very, very professional and did an awesome job,” according to McEachren, when referencing the 2012 incident.
“I contacted EHS within a week and sent them a map and talked to a supervisor who in turn said it would be fixed. After all, I may have a heart attack and be the next one needing their service.”
Back in 2012 he said he was advised that the system would be updated and the problem rectified.
That’s why he was surprised when another delay occurred last week.
“This is obviously a safety concern. If the municipality or province change a roadway, rename a road or otherwise, we’d like to know that it does not impede our safety and the proper departments are notified of the changes. It shouldn’t take a heart attack or worse for a lesson to be learned here.”
A spokesperson for EHS said they were aware of the Malcolms Road situation and said the issue has since been resolved.
“EHS utilizes a mobile mapping system in the province with Automatic Vehicle Location in every unit to support responding paramedics,” according to Brianna Leblanc, a spokesperson for EHS.
“We have a quality process in place for mapping and are reviewing this incident to see what may have occurred from a technical perspective to not have this specific change populate. We can confirm that this segment has been updated and tested and we are satisfied that this situation has been rectified.”
Though relieved to hear EHS has addressed the situation, McEachren still had a measure of concern over the issue.
“I just want the problem fixed and I think it did. That’s where I am with it,” he said.
“We’ll know when someone calls again.”