9-1-1 Changes Coming
Prince George, B.C. – This fall, there will be a change in how 9-1-1 calls are handled in the
Right now, when a 9-1-1 call is made from any of these Regional Districts, the calls go directly to the Operational Communications Centre (OCC) of the North District RCMP. ( North District OCC dispatcher in photo at right, photo courtesy North District RCMP) The operator then transfers the call to the appropriate emergency response agency, whether it be police, fire, or ambulance.
This fall, that will change.
All 9-1-1 calls will be answered by E-Comm out of Vancouver, and then transferred to the appropriate emergency response agency.
“E-Comm has a proven track record of handling calls” says Donna Munt, General Manager of Community Services for the Regional District of Fraser Fort George. “98% of the calls are answered in 5 seconds or less, which is above the standard of 90% of the calls being answered within 10 seconds, so we have great confidence in the reaction time to their calls.”
The big advantage for the switch, is the amount of money that will be saved. Under the new model, 9-1-1 call answer services will be significantly reduced from approximately $730,000 per year to about $365,000 per year.
“Public safety remains to be the RCMP’s top priority and this change in service provider will not at all compromise the safety of the residents in the Fraser Fort-George area,” says Inspector Rick Greenwood, BC RCMP Operational Communications Centre Program Management. “The community can be assured that the level of service that our Operational Communications Centre employees in providing police dispatching, complaint taking and status keeping will be maintained at the highest level that the community expects” he adds.
The change to E-Comm will have a budgetary impact on the North District OCC, but not so much that it would cause any job losses says Chris Spence, the OCC Commander at North District, “There will be no job losses, no staff reductions. The OCC employees will still be contributing to the local economy so there shouldn't’t be any real impact at all.”
Donna Munt says the switch to E-Comm, is expected to be seamless, meaning calls to the RCMP will be dispatched to the RCMP OCC in Prince George, calls for fire departments will be dispatched through the Fire Operations Communications Centre (FOCC) in Prince George and calls for ambulance will be dispatched through the BC Ambulance Service dispatch centre in Kamloops.
It is expected the change will take place in October.
Comments
That’s confusing given their recent hiring push:
blog/view/31129/1/north+district+rcmp+looking+for+dispatchers
Maybe the dispatcher shown in the picture is of the youngest one on staff.
Some may be starting to have short term memory loss, which is likely not good for that vocation. :-)
Why were they advertising job openings here? Doesn’t make to much sense.
This should be interesting, since most of the E Comm people in Vancouver probably dont know where Prince George is, let alone Vanderhoof, McBride or Fraser Lake….hope this “savings” is worth it…if they lose even 1 life do to an E Comm mix up, questions will be asked
I wonder what those current dispatchers here feel about their jobs going south?
“The big advantage for the switch, is the amount of money that will be saved. “
That okay folks, moving those jobs to the lower mainland is only temporary. To save the big bucks, those jobs will be moved to India or the Philippines in short order!
Hey why not, most corporation are doing it. And if we raise holy sh*t, they have the option of using Temporary Foreign Workers⦠anything to replace us, and save a buck!
Something is not right. On one hand they say they are going to save money a lot of money by exporting the call answering work to the lower mainland while on the other hand the RCMP say it will not result in job reductions here. Huh?
If that is the case, the RCMP were charging way too much for the 911 call answering service compared to what it was actually costing them.
It doesn’t make sense that you could take away what appears to be a lot of work, and then have those that used to do the work say it won’t have an impact on jobs. The Regional District or the RCMP have some explaining to do.
“most of the E Comm people in Vancouver probably dont know where Prince George is, let alone Vanderhoof, McBride or Fraser Lake”
So, if you had a 6 month training period for people who have to dispatch local forces to local locations, do you really think that they are so stupid as to not deal with the geography of the regions they will be serving and the resources available?
Wait, for a moment I was forgetting, the training takes place in the lower mainland ….. ;-)
“RCMP say it will not result in job reductions here. Huh?”
Perhaps there was lots of overtime and they are reducing overtime rather than reducing staff.
I only read one thing. It’s cheaper so it’s better. I don’t buy that. Cheaper is just that………cheaper.
The calls right now ALL go to the North District RCMP OCC. This just changes the initial call. If its a call for Police it will still be put to the North District RCMP (this is who is/was hiring in the previous story). If its for Fire or Ambulance it will be directed to the appropriate OCC.
It might be a good idea to read the actual media release…
http://www.rdffg.bc.ca/news/media-releases
“I only read one thing. It’s cheaper so it’s better.”
I remember buying computers for between $2,000 and $3,000. They were eventually outdated, so I ended up having to buy a new computer every 4 or 5 years.
Now I can buy laptop computers for $500 to $700 to give me superior performance than those I bought in the 1980’s.
Not everything that is cheaper is worse.
I mean take a McDonald burger and a burger at the YVR Fairmont. ;-)
To save even more money why not have the local firemen stop chasing ambulance’s
Cheers
I find it confusing that around $400,000 can be saved without any job losses or changes. Typically in organization wages are about 85% of the cost of operations. Things are not clear, as reported
Retired what is your logic? Should be interesting.
If my job was moving south, I would be going with it, hopefully, to get out of this winter weather situation
Retired has no logic! He doesn’t even reside in PG!
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