Patients requiring non-emergency transfers between health facilities in the Kamloops and Salmon Arm areas will soon be travelling with a private service provider rather than the BC Ambulance Service.

The province transferred responsibility for low acuity, inter-facility transport to Health Authorities in April 2008.

Brent Hobbs, director for Interior Health’s Patient Transportation Services, says the the switch to Medi-Van Canada Inc. for low-acuity transfers follows a successful pilot project launched in the Central Okanagan last January.

Using vans that can accommodate stretchers or wheelchairs, Medi-Van will get patients to their appointments on time, something that has sometimes been a challenge as ambulances are called to an emergency.

“BCAS’s primary mandate is to attend to 911 calls so traditionally when people have had to move between facilities, they are a lower priority,” Hobbs says. “We are able to pick up and drop off patients on schedule, and ensure valuable BCAS resources are being used in the right way.”

But Hobbs is adamant the private service will be delivered only to patients who are medically stable and do not require continuous monitoring or medical intervention during transport.

High-acuity patients will continue to be transported by the province’s ambulance service.

Hobbs says clinical guidelines for matching the right transportation provider to patient need have been developed by care providers and approved by BCAS and that a similar service has been in place in Victoria for eight years, Vancouver for a few months and in every other health region in the country.”

As in the current system, the health authority will pick up the tab if the trip is between acute-care facilities, but transport to or from home, including long-term care facilities, will be charged to the individual.

Advised of IH’s decision to expand Medi-Van’s service local CUPE 873 spokesperson Don Cragg said he had not been advised of the expansion but was not surprised by the move.

He says IH’s contention that stable patients can be transferred successfully without paramedic care may be true, but he has concerns about a lack of training on the part of Medi-Van drivers.

The level of acuity is now so high for people to be in hospital in the first place, he says.

And Cragg has other concerns - like the possible loss of staff and Salmon Arm’s third ambulance.

“The point would be I’m not going to able to keep staff if there is no work,” he says. “So if they give the work to somebody else, they’re not going to have staff around when they’re needed.”

Frustrated with the lack of progress on a collective agreement with the BC Ambulance Service, Cragg pointed out there is no dispute resolution process for paramedics as there is for firefighters and police.