Paramedics free up police resources

Having paramedics working with the Brandon Police Service has freed up police and health-care resources and led to more arrests and interventions, officials say.

Paramedics started working in the BPS detention facility on July 3, allowing for detainees to be monitored and cared for in-house instead of at the Brandon Regional Health Centre, something police Chief Tyler Bates is grateful for.

“It was not unusual for Brandon Police Service to have three, four, five, six cars lined up at the hospital waiting for their detainees to be assessed,” Bates said in an interview on Friday, adding that situation was “really crippling.”

Up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, people who were arrested were taken to the Brandon Correctional Centre and evaluated there.

That changed when social distancing rules were put in place, resulting in detainees staying at BPS headquarters. Every person arrested was then brought to hospital for evaluations, which caused strain on both BPS and hospital staff.

“We want to be out there doing police work and patrolling and doing our utmost to keep the community safe, and if we’re spending all of our shift time at the hospital waiting for detainees to be assessed, that’s certainly not an efficient way to do business,” Bates said.

The added paramedics, who provide their services 24 hours a day, have freed up police resources to patrol more, leading to more arrests, he said.

Between July 3 and Oct. 17, BPS arrested 901 people, many of them due to intoxication. Over the same period in 2024, BPS arrested 528 people.

Bates attributes that 373-person spike to the freed-up resources.

Those arrests allow BPS to intervene before situations escalate, Bates said, adding that wasn’t happening before.

“When you’ve got six cars lined up at the hospital, now you’re backed up with calls. The calls are coming in, and you’re not able to respond to them because you’re sitting there waiting for medical assessment,” he said.

The detainees waiting for assessments at the hospital were often waiting for six hours. Now, those assessments are often done in 15 minutes.

The assessments are done to ensure that people are healthy and considered fit to spend a night in detention. Detainees will still be taken to hospital when a paramedic deems they need extra care, although those cases are not common, Bates said.

Not having detainees going to the hospital and intermingling with the public is another benefit of having in-house paramedics, he said, since detainees are often “volatile and dangerous.”

The Sun reached out to Prairie Mountain Health for comment on Friday, but didn’t hear back by press time.

Brandon Fire and Emergency Services Chief Terry Parlow, who oversees the city’s paramedics, said most of the work they perform with BPS is caring for people under the Intoxicated Detention Act.

“Probably the biggest factor is that the safety of the people that are being detained here … ensuring that they’re being cared for from the start, when they first come in, until when they’re released,” Parlow said.

“I believe it’s allowing us all to sleep better at night knowing that the patients and the detainees here in the cells are actually being cared for.”

The paramedics provide a similar level of care, if not more, to those who work out of an ambulance, he said.

From the moment an officer brings someone into a cell, the person is examined and either goes to the hospital or remains in the detention centre. They are then checked regularly while being detained.

Kaitlyn May, one of the primary care paramedics, said much of her and her co-workers’ time is spent listening to radios to hear when they’re needed, and searching people’s medical history to know what care they need.

“Basically we’ll see clients if they’re leaving, or we see them when we’re they’re coming in, and our jobs are basically to medically clear people and make sure that they’re fit to be here,” she said on Thursday.

If they are intoxicated, she has to check on them more often to make sure they’re still OK.

“Sometimes all they need is someone to talk with, or Advil or Tylenol.”

May said the job is different from her previous role working in an ambulance because all decisions are made on her own and she may deal with the same person for an entire shift.

“You get to kind of know people a bit more this way, and you spend more time with them. So that’s a bit different,” May said. “Being on an ambulance, you’re able to do a lot more treatment.”

May said while she’s now working with people who have been arrested, she doesn’t really feel in danger while doing her job.

There are always police officers around at the 17-bed detention facility, and she’s never alone with detainees, she said. Those who are assessed as most dangerous are kept handcuffed.

An escalated level of violence does happen “from time to time,” May said, noting most people under the influence of alcohol or drugs don’t act like themselves.

But violence, she noted, was also present when she was working on an ambulance.

Bates said the new program, which was largely modelled on a Winnipeg program that started in 2020, has made “a big difference.”

Winnipeg Police Service Const. Dani McKinnon in an email said the role paramedics have is important because police officers aren’t permitted to administer some levels of care, and detainees would otherwise need to be taken to hospital.

The role of Winnipeg’s Advanced Care Paramedics is much the same as Brandon’s.

Bates said there were conversations “on an ongoing basis” with officials in Winnipeg and a lot of site visits when Brandon’s program was being set up.

“It’s quite remarkable when you look at the change that it’s made,” Bates said. That includes not only how many intoxicated and unruly people are kept off the streets, but also how much less overtime the city is now paying, he said.

Before the program, BPS often had to call in an officer to simply accompany a detainee at the hospital, Bates said, adding the new system will “definitely cut down on overtime.”

Bates said there are still gaps that exist in policing in Brandon, like a sobering centre, but that having paramedics work at the detention facility definitely helps.

» alambert@brandonsun.com