District of Muskoka staff will move forward with bringing in-house the delivery of ambulance services to the area. The move will break ties with private contractor Medavie EMS Ontario Ltd., which has been servicing the area since 2009.
Staff has until December 31, 2016 to complete the transition and has been given a budget of $115,000 for expenditures such as the procurement of consultants and software in order to move the service in-house. Its current contract with Medavie expired on December 31, 2015, but staff has indicated that the private contractor is willing to work with the upper-tier municipality during the transition.
In 2015, Medavie charged the District roughly $210,000 in management fees to provide the service. In the spring of 2015 District staff issued a request for proposal to see if other operators would provide the service cheaper. It received just one proposal from Medavie with a three per cent increase over 2015. Staff has since recommended that the delivery of ambulance service be taken in-house in its entirety. A report by staff indicates there could be a savings of anywhere from $390,205 to $499,492 if the provision of ambulance service is taken over by the District.
The change is not expected to have an impact on paramedics but it’s likely to impact management staff although in a previous interview the representative for Muskoka’s largest municipality, Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison, indicated that taking the service in-house at the upper-tier municipality would require additional management staff. He also said the change in management would not impact service delivery.
The Province downloaded responsibility for the delivery of land ambulance service to upper-tier municipalities on January 1, 2001.
Click here for a related story before the decision was made.
In 2013 I had a need for an ambulance due to a life-threating event. The EMS people were terrific – I was one of the lucky ones to survive. The level of service and professional care was obviously much appreciated.
If experience has taught us anything, it is that the private sector can usually run anything more efficiently (and often less expensively) than can any level of government. While the savings (or potential savings) mentioned in the story are impressive, they had better be accompanied by at least the same level of service as we in Muskoka are receiving now. Otherwise lives are at stake, and the loss of one person due to a decision like this does not make any savings worth while.