Castlegar Wants Answers From BC Ambulance

February 22, 2012

The city of Castlegar wants more information from BC Ambulance into the highly-publicized, 22-hour service outage on Christmas Day.

The ambulance service's Chief Operating Officer Les Fisher has written the city stating the agency is investigating why a cross-coverage plan for Castlegar was not implemented that day.

But city councillor Dan Rye says that's not enough and he wants to know why it happened and why vehicles from Rossland and Nelson were used in the city that day when none of the Castlegar ones were being used.

Rye is calling for the local Superintendent of BC Ambulance to speak before council and explain why the service was unavailable, much like this week's delegation from Interior Health to address the recent temporary ER closure in Castlegar earlier this month.

The letter from Fisher states the BCAS and the Castlegar Fire Department will discuss options to address ambulance-related expenses, which were invoiced by the city last month.