The Kamloops Fire Chief says he will be working with a City Committee that will look into the pros and cons of bringing in a new medical unit to Kamloops Fire and Rescue.
Ken Uzeloc says he understands why City Council voted against the over $1-million ask that was part of this year’s supplemental budget. Most of that amount – $953,000 – would have gone towards hiring the equivalent of six firefighters, so the team could operate seven days a week.
The new two-person medical unit was meant to alleviate the pressure on existing KFR personnel, who have had to respond to an ever-increasing number of medical calls.
“They clearly saw the need and the benefit that this type of model of right-sizing the response has but again, its a provincial responsibility and so with all the discussions that council has been having about downloading, I can understand their hesitation,” Uzeloc said.
Uzeloc says it is not clear if the business case for the new medical unit will be revised before it is presented to the Safety and Security Select Committee.
“Not trying to put words in their mouth but I got the sense that they really wanted to look at how to best leverage this information in their advocacy with the province, and so I’ll be working very closely with them and trying to provide them any information or data that they need,” Uzeloc said.
“The fact that we don’t get compensated for supplies and consumables. Other provinces fire departments do get compensated for some of those supplies so, I think the discussion around cost recovery with the committee is probably going to be one of the biggest things we’ll be talking about.”
For now, Uzeloc says KFR will continue to respond to urgent medical calls across the City, noting if they don’t it could have some significant impact on Kamloops residents.