911 centre readies for surge in calls

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This article was published 01/04/2020 (2323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s provincial 911 centre hasn’t seen a surge in emergency calls yet, but it’s preparing for that, says the City of Brandon’s director of emergency communications.

“We haven’t hit our peak yet, so things could get worse, and when things get worse, all of the emergency services have the potential to be taxed beyond their limits,” Robert Stewart said Tuesday.

“We need to really try to keep that from happening, so remember what 911 is for — 911 is used for emergencies, life-threatening problems, in-progress problems, all of those types of things,” he said. “And so, just keep that in mind — that when you’re calling 911, call because it’s an emergency. Call because you need it.” 

The Brandon-based 911 centre answers emergency calls from across the province, except for Winnipeg. 

It also dispatches calls to fire departments in almost 200 communities, rural municipalities and First Nations in Manitoba as well as handling calls and dispatching for the Brandon Police Service, Manitoba First Nations Police and a number of smaller police departments in the province, including those in Altona, Morden and Winkler.

March is normally the time when calls start to rise after the February lull, but that hasn’t materialized so far, Stewart said.

“There could be a couple of reasons for that,” he said. “We think it’s because a lot of people are, sort of, taking this whole stay-at-home thing to heart, and that’s what they’re doing.”

Emergency calls to the Brandon Police Service are also down, he said.

“When I talk to Chief (Wayne) Balcaen, he confirms that on the street they’re sort of seeing that, as well.”

While fire departments, including Brandon’s, haven’t yet begun to see a jump in calls, this is getting to be grass fire season when calls do begin to ramp up, Stewart said.

Approximately 20 per cent of calls received by the 911 centre are what are referred to as “nuisance calls,” with people just wanting information that is not emergency based.

It also includes “whistleblower calls,” Stewart said — “people that are calling to report people that aren’t doing the quarantine the way that they’re supposed to.”

While they have had some of those whistleblower calls, the numbers are very low, he said, adding non-emergency call takers at Brandon police are getting a few more of those. 

Those types of callers are currently being asked to call their local public health department.

“But people seem to be respecting what 911 is for and not clogging our lines with those types of requests,” Stewart said.

Meanwhile, the 911 centre, based in Firehall No. 1, has made changes in light of the pandemic, sending half of the six- to seven-person teams to its backup centre at the A.R. McDiarmid Civic Complex “just so we don’t have everybody in the same room all the time,” Stewart said.

If one group of staff gets sick, it doesn’t decimate the entire team of dispatchers, he said, noting they haven’t yet seen an increase in the number of people calling in sick.

“Our goal in 911 as this moves forward is to try to keep our staff as healthy as possible so that we can continue to provide no service interruptions as we move forward.”

The call centre does have some contingency plans should call volumes worsen, but increasing staffing isn’t one of them because of the time involved in training, Stewart said.

“We’ve got some ways that we can keep the staffing levels where they need to be,” he said, including staff working overtime if it comes to that.

The 911 centre has approximately 32 staff members, including supervisors.

Stewart, who was a paramedic and dispatcher in British Columbia for 19 years, said the situation with COVID-19 is much different than it was during the SARS pandemic.

“People definitely did not take it to heart at that point,” he said. “The hospitals were overrun with walk-ins and the ambulances were (going) crazy. This is a very different situation here, and I think people are taking it seriously.”

» brobertson@brandonsun.com