Not just a paramedic issue: What's behind 911 call delays in B.C.

Delays for 911 emergency service in B.C. have been growing for months, with officials at E-Comm 911 – the province’s dispatch service – insisting the paramedic shortage is to blame. Now, CTV News Vancouver has learned E-Comm’s own staffing issues are also affecting response times.

Delays for 911 emergency service in B.C. have been growing for months, with officials at E-Comm 911 – the province’s dispatch service – insisting the paramedic shortage is to blame. Now, CTV News Vancouver has learned E-Comm’s own staffing issues are also affecting response times.

CTV News has obtained a third-party analysis of E-Comm 911’s operations, which supports urgent warnings from the call-takers’ union that the not-for-profit company is understaffed and underfunded for the services it provides. 

“There's a staffing crisis and funding crisis at E-Comm, there's a staffing crisis at (BC Emergency Health Services), and both organizations are experiencing the crunch,” said Donald Grant, president of the Emergency Communications Professionals of B.C. “We're experiencing constant callouts, people are working extreme amounts of overtime and they're going without breaks. There simply aren't enough of us to take the calls."

When someone in British Columbia calls 911, the call is answered by a call-taker at E-Comm 911, who transfers them based on their needs: police, fire or ambulance. It’s well-documented that there are shortages of paramedic call-takers – who also provide medical guidance if required – as well as the ambulance paramedics they dispatch.

There are no delays transferring to the dozens of municipal fire departments E-Comm supports, but the company also provides emergency and non-emergency call-taking and police dispatch for 33 police agencies throughout the province, including Vancouver police and Richmond RCMP. E-Comm acknowledges the policing supports, in particular the non-emergency services they’re contracted to provide, are understaffed with long waits.

“For 911, assuming normal call process, forecasted volumes and the typical time it takes to hand off a call, we are properly staffed and funded at the 911 level,” insisted E-Comm 911 president and CEO Oliver Gruter-Andrew. “Where we’ve seen problems recently is that the time takes to hand off to the BC Ambulance Service has taken longer than expected and planned. Because of that, we are staying on the line for longer and that depletes our resources able to answer the next 911 call.”

He described the paramedic shortages as a threat to public safety, since they have ripple effects throughout the first responder system. But, when CTV News pointed out that E-Comm was backing up its own 911 response with its understaffed policing supports, Gruter-Andrew claimed that was not the case and that the initial call-taking sector was staffed appropriately.