“Hey hey, hey ho, Model C has got to go,” was the chant heard outside of the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre on Monday night.
Approximately 200 paramedics, union workers and supporters – some coming from from Toronto, London, Elgin, Windsor and Lambton – marched from the emergecny room in Chatham to the downtown municipal building to express their concern about a proposed blending of services between paramedics and firefighters in Chatham-Kent.
“The most important thing in this is whole process is that the paramedics have been ignored completely,” Chris Stolte, executive board member with SEIU Local 1 Canada.
“You have people that have worked in Chatham-Kent for 30 years and the door is being slammed in their face. It’s just not right, it’s not fair and he’s got to work with us.”
Stolte is referring to Ken Stuebing, the Chatham-Kent fire paramedic chief, who provided a presentation to council last month outlining details and finding from a service review conducted on Chatham-Kent Fire and Emergency Services.
“We are here tonight to bring attention to the fact that we haven’t been involved in the transparent process of the proposal that Chief Stuebing has brought forward,” Stolte said.
“We haven’t been consulted whatsoever and we think the proposals he has brought forward are flawed.”
Municipal officials say a blended emergency service model will provide the residents of Chatham-Kent with the best level of service, the most cost savings and sustainability into the foreseeable future.
“We understand the concerns in the community and our primary goal is always to ensure high-quality emergency services,” stated Stuebing, in a press release sent out late Monday afternoon.
“Model C was designed for CK, utilizing the current resources to their fullest potential to deal with our emergency calls and geographical challenges – it is not a cookie cutter proposal. Changing the service delivery model is not an easy decision, but it can be done and we can do it if council chooses to move forward with this option.”
The three service delivery models presented to council last month were:
Model A – Status Quo: CKFES remains as is with EMS delivered by a third-party service provider under contract to the Municipality. CK will remain one of the few municipalities in the province to employ this type of EMS service delivery model.
Model B – Direct Delivery Model: EMS delivered directly through the formation of a third emergency service of unionized municipal workers (Police, Fire and EMS under the municipal umbrella), managed and administered with an integrated Fire and EMS management team.
Model C – Direct Delivery Model: A fully blended, composite Fire and EMS service under one management umbrella.
During the service review it was determined that blending Fire and EMS into one service was a viable model and warranted further investigation.
Stolte said Chatham-Kent paramedics are not in favor of this option and are not happy with how the process has gone so far.
“The first night of deputations we made it quite clear that we wanted to get the message out here that we are willing to work with him and yet four weeks later we still have not heard a word,” he said.
“We have contacted his office three times and we haven’t heard anything back… so we are angry.”
Council is expected to discuss, debate and vote on the report on June 27.
Here is some more background on the issue:
– C-K: ‘Committed to high-quality emergency services’
– EMS and Fire Department merger being explored
Here are some photos of the rally on Monday:
– Photo credit: Tami Schram
So paramedics work a stressful job doing the work we like to pretend does not happen. Now council rewards them by putting them through this hell. Shame on chatham kent!!!!!
Again we are having to look at another situation that is completely changing the structure of our health system. This is another example of something that needs to be presented to the people that are employed in this aspect of the system and get their concerns, maybe there is legitimate reasons for their protests. Or is this another CKHA scenario. I think our Mayor and councilors need to listen to the people that elected them, as well the taxpayers need to know how this is going to be an advantage to us and how much more this is going to cost us. Not another one of these done deals.
As an addition to the previous comment. I have talked to both Paramedics and Fireman and both have deep reservations on this change. They need to be heard and their concerns be considered.