British Columbia’s emergency health service says it is reviewing the circumstances of the reported death of an infant last week while waiting for an ambulance in a small community in the southern Interior, calling it a “heartbreaking loss.”
A statement from B.C. Emergency Health Services says it received a call to respond to a patient in the community of Barrierre, about 80 kilometres north of Kamloops, on Aug. 25.
The agency has not confirmed the patient’s age or cause of death but says it has opened a review into the call for service and will work with the patient care quality office to reach out to the family and address any questions or concerns.
Troy Clifford, president of Ambulance Paramedics of B.C., had spoken to media over the weekend about the death of an infant in Barriere.
Clifford said his organization would continue to address a “provincewide staffing crisis,” including in communities like Barriere that he said are “often left without appropriate ambulance coverage for long periods of time due to staffing issues.”
However, he could not confirm whether ambulance response time was a contributing factor in the infant’s death, instead directing queries to Emergency Health Services.
The agency said the closest available ambulance was immediately dispatched, and local firefighters were also requested to assist with the call.
