BC’s geography may affect ambulance response times: Lake

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The geography of this province may be a reason why ambulance response times are up.

The health minister is using that as an explanation when News1130 took paramedics concerns to him.

Two weeks ago, we brought you the story of the Ambulance Paramedics of BC claiming it took them 12 minutes to get to the scene of an emergency, when the national average is nine minutes.

“No, I haven’t seen that information,” says Health Minister Terry Lake.

“British Columbia is a very large, diverse, and topographically challenging province. So, we certainly will get variances from one part of the province to another.”

He adds they consistently do reviews of the service, adding the last one focused on lights and sirens and how to avoid traffic chaos when they’re on the road.

Lake notes he’s happy with how things are running right now.

Meantime, his ministry says the BC Ambulance Service budget more than doubled over the past decade. In 2011-2012, the BCAS fleet consisted of 500 ambulances and 62 support vehicles across the province.

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