Fire chief says new dispatch service is long overdue
City looking for ways to offset costs of hiring new staff
Cody Punter
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 18, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Yellowknife's fire chief says recently-approved upgrades to the city's emergency dispatch services are long overdue.
The city approved $125,000 for a new computerized dispatch service last week and plans to hire five professionally trained dispatchers in 2015.
According to fire chief Darcy Hernblad, the city's current dispatch service - which has been run out of Pumphouse No. 1 since the early 1970s - can no longer keep up with the city's demand.
"Right now, there's so much on the emergency dispatch side," said Hernblad. "It's just got to be where the workload has outgrown itself."
Hernblad said when the city' dispatch services were first established at the pumphouse, the city received a few hundred emergency calls a year. It now receives more than 3,800.
Dennis Marchiori, director of public safety, said the pumphouse was chosen as the location for the city's emergency dispatch services because, at the time, it was one of the only buildings that was staffed 24 hours every day.
"It was antiquated system we set up in the 1970s when there wasn't a lot of call volume, and we needed someone to answer calls when it was late at night," said Marchiori.
To this day, emergency calls are answered by engineers who monitor the pumphouse around the clock, but have no emergency training.
Hernblad said while having engineers answering emergency calls might not seem like it makes sense, at the time, the system was cost effective and efficient.
"It worked fine. You had people down there watching over the boilers and watching over the water system for Yellowknife and to take a few emergency calls ... yeah it worked well," said Hernblad who has been with the department for more than 25 years.
Neither Marchiori nor Hernblad were able to explain how the dispatch system worked before it was located at the pumphouse.
When an emergency call is made, the duty officer at the fire hall receives a call from the dispatcher and decides what actions needs to be taken.
Even when the duty officer is on the scene for an emergency call, they are still responsible for directing subsequent call-outs.
Hernblad added that for any one emergency, dispatch will receive dozens of calls from residents, and each call must be answered.
"You can have multiple lines ringing and it can be overwhelming," said Hernblad.
To improve efficiency, the new emergency dispatch service will be run out of the fire hall.
Marchiori said the timing of the transition makes even more sense because the city's new water treatment plant does not need to be staffed 24 hours a day.
Marchiori said the city has not yet explored whether the reduction in staff at the pumphouse will equate to savings for the taxpayer, pointing out that there are several other pumphouses and treatment plants that require maintenance.
However, he said the city is currently looking at other cost-saving measures, including taking on the GNWT's 24-hour hotline service.
"Like anything else we do at the city, we're trying to save money and look for economies of scale," said Marchiori.
