A lengthy debate at Owen Sound city council on Monday night resulted in the status quo as far as the city’s firefighters are concerned.
Council unanimously agreed to leave things alone for the time being as far as tiered responses are concerned.
A fire services advisory ad hoc committee had supported a recommendation from Fire Chief Ed Nowak that firefighters respond only to calls that are “obvious immediate threats.”
The recommendation eliminated severe abdominal pain, hypothermia, drug overdoses, bleeding, childbirth and other instances from the list of calls to which firefighters would respond.
But the Owen Sound Professional Firefighters Association objected to the recommendation, saying public safety could be compromised if firefighters were not permitted to respond as they currently do to all medical calls.
The association’s president, Captain Dave Cruickshank, spoke at council about the concerns of firefighters.
They say the proposal would be a reduction in service and would put residents and visitors at risk.
Firefighters are often the first response to a call, Cruickshank says, and a timely response is vital in many instances when minutes can mean the difference between life and death.
If it had been approved, the new system would be reviewed after a six-month trial period.
Instead, the status quo will be reviewed after six months.
The whole issue arose earlier this year after Chief Nowak recommended that the city authorize the purchase of a mini-pumper, saying it would ease the wear and tear on the bigger truck currently used for emergency responses.
Council tabled the request and asked for a review of the tiered response system, a review that was conducted over a series of meetings.
In the end on Monday, councillors felt they simply did not have enough information to be able to approve the ad hoc committee’s recommendation.
Even the three councillors who, along with Nowak, make up that committee – chair David Adair, Arlene Wright and John Christie – voted to not proceed.
The mini-pumper came up again on Monday and led to significantly more debate — Nowak and the committee are to look at that issue and bring a report back to council before the end of August.
