As regional councillors continue to ponder how to keep ambulance response times low, they’re casting an eye toward rural services.
One proposed temporary solution is to upgrade the so-called rural emergency response units or RERUs – a paramedic unit introduced earlier this decade – to full ambulances.
Putting more ambulances on the road would help decrease response times across the region.
However, those ambulances wouldn’t necessarily spend as much time in the region’s rural areas as the RERU’s do – as ambulances frequently cross borders in attempts to get to as many calls as possible.
Wellesley Mayor Joe Nowak says he’s worried people in his township could face longer waits for ambulance service as a result.
“If that unit is fluid, it could be moved anywhere,” he says.
“It could end up in Stratford. It could end up in Kitchener – and at that point of time, there wouldn’t be any coverage out here.”
What Nowak would like to see instead is the ambulance added while the region also maintains the RERU.
Regional chair Ken Seiling says doing so would cost a “significant amount of money,” although he understands where Nowak is coming from.
“By converting the RERU to an ambulance, we improve the service across the region,” he says.
“At the same time, we may potentially slow down, by a few seconds, a response in some of the outlying areas.”
