Photo: Nicholas Johansen

Kelowna Fire Department spends more time at medical first responses than at fires.

Medical emergencies are putting a drain on resources within the Kelowna Fire Department.

That according to a report on fire services provided to city council by an independent third party Monday.

Figures provided by Dark Horse Analytics shows a full-time Kelowna fire hall is 50 per cent busier year-over-year than a hall in Abbotsford and twice as busy as one in Toronto.

A majority of calls are medical first responses. And, with overall emergency calls to the fire department increasing by 10 per cent yearly over the past three years, company official Daniel Haight says calls will double in seven years at the current pace.

Fire crews respond to medical calls, in fact, they reach their destination with the optimal nine minute time frame 87 per cent of the time, compared with 51 per cent for BC Ambulance personnel.

It was a statistic that bothered Coun. Charlie Hodge, who asked why firefighters are getting to responses first.

"In general, it's a lack of ambulances and staff available to respond to calls, typically because they are tied up at hospitals," said Haight.

"The problem starts at hospitals, tying up ambulances waiting to offload patients, leaving them unable to respond to medical calls. It's a fairly large chain of events that causes this problem."

Hodge asked if the city should be pressing the province for more ambulances to cut down on the calls.

"That seems to be the key to this report...things seem to be out of balance for us," added Coun. Luke Stack.

"We seem to be responding more to first medical calls, and getting there before the ambulance does. It seems to put everything out of balance from my perspective."

One of the recommendations from the report was education and programs to try and cut down on the number of medical response calls.

Haight said in Hamilton, they send out paramedics, paired with police officers to deal with vulnerable communities, homeless people or addicts, to try and pre-emptively work with them.

"In other cases you have diabetics who forget to take their meds, so sending a social worker to remind them is less expensive than sending a fire truck or ambulance to transport them to hospital.