Member Update -UBCM 2020

September 22, 2020
Provincial News

Dear Members;

Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) 

As you are aware, each year the Ambulance Paramedics and Emergency Dispatchers of BC, representing over 4500 Paramedics and 270 Medical Dispatchers, attend the annual UBCM www.ubcm.ca convention and engage community, municipal and provincial leaders. The current pandemic is forcing us to be creative this year with UBCM 2020 now being held virtually, including APBC hosting a virtual booth to support our engagement and efforts.

UBCM is one opportunity as part of our overall strategy to address the many issues we face, particularly as we experience the impacts in what is our worst staffing and workload crisis in our history. We cannot not move quickly enough to address these critical issues. These are complicated issues which have evolved over time for many reasons. We are committed to working with municipalities to identify solutions. Moving forward with suggested solutions to ensure member and organizational wellness for our patients and the citizens in the communities around this province is our priority.

We are listening to your concerns and hearing everything being said and suggested. We understand that it is time for change. Our message is that the Province of British Columbia cannot continue to rely a marginalized, underpaid, on-call model to deliver services for the majority of the province. Our Emergency Medical Dispatchers and Emergency Medical Call Takers cannot be pressured to carry the burden of having no resources upon their shoulders. Our Urban and Metro paramedics cannot sustain being utilized upwards to 100% of their shifts. Reliance on overtime to staff the service is not a fix, but a band-aid situation. We need a new model that allows for career opportunities and recruitment of new staff. To keep staff in this service we need a way to allow them to be recruited and trained in their home communities. We cannot sustain the very real effects on our mental and physical health. 

Today we have distributed our media release which speaks to our lobby efforts and the current issues we are facing; in conjunction, we will be meeting with media in response.

In addition, we have significant resources as part of our engagement and virtual booth we provide the following documents as reference for our members:

We have also started a community resource document which can be viewed at:

Community Resource Document

This is part of our overall strategy and is the first phase of a more comprehensive community and public education resource to support our Provincial campaigns and initiatives.  

Sincerely,

Troy Clifford

Provincial President

Ambulance Paramedics BC

CUPE Local 873

Please click HERE to view PDF version of this message.

TC/km/MoveUp