New paramedics headquarters opens in Waterloo
Posted Feb 28, 2020 09:15:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new headquarters for paramedic services for the Region of Waterloo officially opened its doors on Friday.
The 48,500 square foot facility at 1001 Erb's Road is designed to be highly efficient, environmentally friendly and cost-saving.
It’s also a much-needed expansion to help take pressure off the south headquarters, which is located in Cambridge.
Deputy Chief Rob Crossan says the new facility will be the only paramedics headquarters in Waterloo Region to have a simulation lab, which will help train new recruits.
“We have mannequins, baby mannequins, children, adults. We can run scenarios, we can make it look like an apartment, we can bring a car in and do car accident extrications. We can back an ambulance up and have trainees or new hires or whatever like they’re loading a stretcher into an ambulance and carry on like they’re doing a call.”
He says they have vastly outgrown the south station, which is about 18 years old.
“In 12 years, we have seen almost a double of our call volume, which means we need twice the number of vehicles and staff to serve it. So we had run out of change room and locker space for staff. We had to get very creative on how to park ambulances indoors. Our ambulances need to be indoors or they need to be running, because they have IV supplies and medications in them.”
Crossan says the new facility is highly efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost-saving.
“All the heat, both in the garage and in the admin side is all radiant, in-floor heating. So it’s little tubes with heated glycol that gets pumped through the floors. So all the heat in the building radiates up from the floors. When we come in the winter and blustery days like [on Friday], all the slush falls off and it melts on the floor.”
The new facility has parking room for 21 ambulances and seven response units, and it will be the home base for 278 staff members.
