Vanscoy woman turns to firefighters after ambulance for daughter doesn’t arrive

On Wednesday morning, Michelle Linklater realized her disabled daughter Jennica might have fractured her foot, so she called for an ambulance.

Linklater said she waited three hours, and called emergency services back multiple times during that period.

“They just said, ‘We just have no ambulances. They are all tied up,’” she said.

Linklater then turned to social media, making out a post asking for help to get her daughter into her vehicle.

She finally called her local fire department, and two first responders from Vanscoy came to help Linklater’s daughter into a wheelchair and then the vehicle.

“Hats off to them that they came,” she said.

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The mother said she had to call an ambulance for an emergency surgery that her daughter needed the previous week, and that time it arrived in less than 30 minutes.

Linklater said it’s concerning that no ambulance arrived this time, because when her daughter requires medical attention and she calls 911, it’s a last resort.

“Through the years I’ve learned how to handle lots of tragedies on my own, so when I’m calling it’s because I need some help,” she explained.

Although her daughter isn’t wheelchair-bound, Linklater said she might need to get a ramp installed at her home if ambulance service is unreliable.

“We’re going to have to incur an extra expense here because we don’t have access to services,” she said.

Linklater said she’s not just concerned about herself, but for everyone who might need ambulance service.

“We can’t wait,” she said. “I’m one person today, (but) there’s other people that didn’t get an ambulance today as well.”

A statement from the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) said that with all EMS services, 911 calls are prioritized based on their level of severity. If an ambulance is not immediately available, the next closest available ambulance will be dispatched.

“The SHA responds to high patient volumes with a province-wide approach to support safe care and EMS coverage in response to patient demand while ensuring safety for all of our patients,” the authority’s statement read.

According to the SHA, there is a high demand for paramedics in Saskatchewan.

The authority said it’s working with the provincial government to explore more opportunities to bring paramedics to the province through recruitment and retention initiatives, and to increase access to training through organizations such as Saskatchewan Polytechnic and regional colleges.

“Over the past two budgets, the provincial government has provided SHA additional funding for more staffing resources to help stabilize ambulance availability and improve response times in Regina and Saskatoon and their surrounding communities,” the authority noted.

Troy Davies, with Medavie Health Services West in Saskatoon, said long wait times could be due to several factors, like full emergency rooms or high call volumes.

Davies said there are circumstances where calls like Linklater’s – which aren’t the most severe emergencies – could have wait times stretching to multiple hours.

But, Davies said, a first responder will always show up.

Davies said the organization is working on providing additional programs, such as community paramedics, to alleviate some of the pressures in the health-care system.

“When you have a city that’s grown 14,000 people in one year, we’re seeing the pressures on doctors, nurses, and ERs, and that just flows down right to the street,” he said.