Councillor’s death jolts health services into action

It has taken the tragic and seemingly preventable death of a beloved Skidegate Band councillor to shed light on what critics say is chronically unreliable ambulance service in B.C.’s remote communities.

Godfrey Williams (Didi), 48, died of a heart attack Aug. 2, following a series of blunders that caused what should have been a 10-minute ambulance trip to take nearly one hour.

It was something remote communities have been warning about for years: staffing shortages and significant coverage gaps causing undependable first response to emergencies.

Now, months after the tragedy, a working group has been formed in the Village of Queen Charlotte that will attempt to rework an outdated BC Ambulance Service model and is slated to be used provincially by other remote communities along the coast.

A medical report from Northern Health identifies that Williams probably could have survived if not for the wait.

In Williams’ death report, dated three days after the Aug. 2 incident, Dr. Tracy Morton wrote that ambulance service from Queen Charlotte, about 10 minutes away from Skidegate, was dispatched immediately after the Williams’ family called for help.

But a local crew was not available, leaving Williams’ friends and family to helplessly watch him suffer, unsuccessfully attempting to revive him as ambulance service from another island, Sandspit, was dispatched — a 20-minute ferry ride away.

It took the Sandspit crew another 20 minutes to find Williams’ home, and despite resuscitation efforts, he died shortly after arriving in hospital.

Morton said the Queen Charlotte ambulance station has had staffing shortfalls for nearly a year — on-call paramedics only make $2 per hour unless called to an emergency — and there have been several other, less serious, delays.

He called the response time “unacceptable.”

“Though it is impossible to predict with certainty the outcome had [Williams] received defibrillation within a typical timeframe, I can say that his chances of survival would have been favourable,” Morton’s report reads, in part.

“The fact that he had a shockable rhythm well over an hour post-arrest suggests that he would very likely have responded positively to earlier advanced treatments.”

Skidegate Chief Councillor Billy Yovanovich said in an interview that Williams’ death has devastated his Haida Village, but the shock is wearing off and people are now trying to pick up the pieces.

Williams’ three daughters are back at school, and leadership has taken on his usual duties on council.

“It’s unfortunate that we’ve had to have such a tragic incident to bring this issue to light,” Yovanovich said.

“It’s obviously hard. It’s quite an adjustment but nobody wants to get stuck in the past and point fingers here or there. I’m feeling better that on a moving forward basis things will get better.”

Village of Queen Charlotte Mayor Carol Kulesha said Williams was a respected and well-loved community figure.

“It takes a long time to get over things like this,” she said.

“It’s on the forefront of everyone’s minds.… This should not fall by the wayside. This is an essential service. We all deserve it. Everybody deserves a chance.”

BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS) executive vice-president Linda Lupini said in an interview that the paramedic who was supposed to be on-call the afternoon Williams died was booked off.

But to avoid future staffing mishaps, she said, a frontline supervisor has been sent to Queen Charlotte to recruit on-call paramedics.

BCEHS has now formed a working group consisting of community leaders and on-island paramedics to attempt to fix the broken care model for rural and remote communities.

The group met twice and has come up with solutions, including working with local businesses so paramedics can work shifts and be on-call at the same time.

The working group’s input will go towards forming a provincial working group that will develop new models for remote communities.

“[The current model] is an outdated model and a model we’re trying to redesign now,” Lupini said.

“We’re going to launch the new model in spring/summer of 2015 and probably pilot four communities just to make sure it works properly, and if it does, we’ll continue to add community after community.”

There are plans to add 80 full-time equivalent paramedic positions in B.C. over the next five years, but she could not elaborate on what level of training they will have.

The First Nations Health Authority, which provides preventative services to Skidegate, is taking part in the working group and recently partnered with the Red Cross to train Emergency Medical Assistants as additional first responders in remote First Nations communities.

It said in a statement that it is also “exploring a number of innovative alternatives for rural remote emergency and primary service care delivery” although “pre-hospital care continues to be provincially resourced and mandated.”

Mayor Kulesha, who has been advocating for better ambulance service since 2011, said she is just glad action is finally being taken.

“We had a horrible emergency situation and the councillor’s death really shored this all up but it’s really something that’s been happening for a long time,” she said.

“Everything progresses really slowly unless there’s an emergency.”