Regional Council supports recommendations
Posted Jan 31, 2012 03:30:02 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Recommendations made after Novembers fatal helicopter crash at the regions airport are being supported by Regional Council.
In former police chief Larry Gravill’s report, he outlined 9 recommendations, 5 of which will directly impact the region, and all 5 were supported by regional council.
The main message in Gravill’s report is that there needs to be one common dispatch model, in this situation, there were 4 dispatch locations dealing with the call, and studies he’s done in the past speak to having all those in one common location, “I realize technically this can be accomplished through one communication platform, but really I think there are some synergies that occur when these folks are in the same room and I think that when we reconvene our working group, that we will be able to better articulate what those synergies are.”
However, important to note, Gravill says there were no delays in response times, “I think in this case there were certainly updates that were required that didn’t occur, but it didn’t change ambulance response times, so I think that’s the good part. But I think there were updates along the way that really could have been better passed along if everyone was working on the same platform.”
The current issue is that the ambulance dispatch, run by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, out of Cambridge, is unwilling to participate in a common model and council has agreed to invite local M.P.P.’s to a meeting to discuss this further.
Gravill looks forward to further meetings, “I hope that when we reconvene the dispatch working group, there will be unanimity in following through in creating a common dispatch, that it will be shown to be economical and as well as the best thing to do in response to our community demands.”
Director of Transportation with the region, John Hammer, says airport staff will also do more emergency training with Woolwich, Kitchener and Cambridge fire, “Doing joint training exercises with the fire departments as well as joint operations training, communication training, that are usually done by the fire departments.”
