Letter to the Editor

(An Open Letter to Leanne Heppell, Chief Ambulance Officer at BC Emergency Health Services).

The BC Rural Health Network wants to publicly thank you for engaging with our Board of Directors Oct. 26. The ability to engage is a significant opportunity for us to inform ourselves as a network and to share your insights with rural residents and communities across B.C.

We also wish to acknowledge how appreciative we are of your approach and ability to speak directly to the questions asked by our team. Many rural residents have felt left out of the conversation on their health services. Providing answers and honesty to the circumstances rural B.C. faces with our ambulances, means a great deal to our network and we believe is needed by all 1.5 million rural residents.

Some of the items we see as being great potentials for improved services to our rural populations:

– The temporary agreement made with the union is a good step forward. We agree rural ambulance service has many additional challenges to that of urban service provision and we believe the financial measures taken will help stabilize the system for more residents.

– The BCEHS is working on a plan to increase air ambulance services throughout the province and giving more options for helping the most vulnerable in the most isolated regions of BC.

– Recent hiring campaigns have resulted in high application rates and that although many are relocation applications these will also help stabilize service when paramedics can work closer to their home communities.

– Your interest in the work being done by communities on developing strategies for improving their local service and hearing their proposals was much appreciated. As we continue to engage, we hope to share more potential solutions being derived from the grassroots of our communities.

– That you are keen to remove barriers to allow for more non-paramedic drivers to assist in communities facing reduced services and inability to transport.

At the meeting, following your departure, the entire board stated their gratitude for such an open and transparent conversation. These types of engagements are key to keeping the rural residents’ support of the BCEHS.

We believe your approach to us represents a capital “C” change in historical interactions with the BCEHS. We believe this serves as an excellent example to other agencies on how to effectively engage and interact with their rural communities.

Our optimism on changes is tempered with our past experiences of promises not being kept. This skepticism is due to many years of less than adequate ambulance service in rural communities, but it is also due to many years of not having the type and level of discussion we had yesterday. This was a big step in the right direction in our opinion and we hope in yours as well.

Dr. Jude Kornelsen has also stated her desire to see participation from the BCEHS on our new Implementation Committee.

The Implementation Committee is all about bringing rural experiences forward and moving evidence-based research into policy. The committee’s reach is broader than just Emergency Health Service issues, but all health issues tend to overlap. We welcome the help of the BCEHS to join our efforts on bringing solutions forward to policy makers.

You have our support. We are encouraged as the BCEHS steps into a new era of dynamic leadership that will ensure all residents have access to emergency transport and paramedic care in their times of need. We look forward to our next meeting and we will ensure we get information out to the public through all means available to us as progress is made.

Yours in health and wellness…

Peggy Skelton,

BC Rural Health Network President

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