Health Minister Allows Firefighters to "Drive" Ambulances

Health Minister Theresa Oswald has signed a Ministerial Exemption Order that will allow firefighters to drive ambulances in extraordinary circumstances.

The Emergency Response and Stretcher Transportation Act states that driving an ambulance responding to an emergency is retricted to licensed EMS providers only. Therefore, by law, firefighters who were not licensed as EMS providers could not drive an ambulance to the hospital even if requested to do so by the EMS crew. In certain situations, particularly in rural areas where additional EMS resources might take a long time to respond, there was concern about not being able to utilize all appropriate practitioners to provide patient care.

In an effort to address this concern, Minisiter Oswald signed the exemption that will allow both EMS practitioners to provide patient care enroute to the hospital when deemed necessary. The intent of this order is not to allow general policy to be adopted that permits firefighters to staff ambulances, but rather ensure there is flexibility for EMS crews to make that request when need be. As a result, firefighters with a Class 4 license (but not an EMS Provider License) are now permitted to drive an ambulance to the hospital if

• both EMS practitioners are required to provide care in an urgent and and serious threat to life or limb of one or more patients AND
  
• the crew staffing the ambulance asks the firefighter to drive it.

This Ministerial Exemption is in effect until December 31, 2006. At that time it will be reveiwed to ensure it has addressed the issue appropriately without creating additional concerns before being re-issued. I encourage you to bring any problems relating to this issue to our attention immediately.