Editorial: Ompahs Gain is Parhams loss

Jeff Green | Nov 17, 2011

Editorial by Jeff Green

The Parham ambulance base will have to close after the Ompah base opens

Barring anything unforeseen, Frontenac County will be building an ambulance post in Ompah next year.

Four members of county council already support going ahead with the project. Two months ago Frontenac County Warden Gary Davison said he would support the Ompah project, tipping the balance in its favour, once county and township staff work out a cost sharing agreement and the construction standards are assured.

With that agreement now in place the project will proceed, with county approval coming this week or next month at the latest.

While those advocating for the Ompah base, particularly North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton, have downplayed the connection between building the Ompah base and the eventual closing of the Parham base in favour of a new base in Sharbot Lake, that move will have to take place once the Ompah base is built.

Research done by the IBI group in 2008, and further verified by Frontenac Paramedic Service data that has been collected since then, demonstrates that putting a 12-hour a day base in Ompah creates a service gap in the centre of the County, which can only be covered by moving the Parham base north to Hwy. 7.

For that reason, the original council resolution calling for the Ompah base to be built also called for the Parham base to be moved. That resolution is still on the books.

Undoubtedly the construction of a new ambulance base on or near Hwy. 7 will be brought forward to County Council in 2013 or 2014 at the latest.

Frontenac County Council would be ill-advised to waver on this matter. There are winners and losers any time an ambulance base is moved, and being a winner or a loser can sometimes have life and death consequences. A council charged with this kind of responsibility needs to act based on the data that is provided to it by its staff and the consultants it hires to provide information. Otherwise it is exposing its citizens to increased risks and itself to potential liability.

Council members can argue all they want about whether they agree with the information that is presented to them, but with nothing else to go on but dots on a map marking where ambulance calls actually have actually come from, they will really have no choice.

Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski, who also sat on Frontenac County Council back in February of 2010, opposed building the Ompah base at that time precisely because it meant that the Parham base would have to move to Sharbot Lake, and nothing has changed.

The Parham base has served the northern half of the county and the surrounding region well since it was built over 40 years ago, and closing it will be a blow to a community that is also losing its local school.

Overall, this is really a good news story, however.

Not that long ago the Parham service was the only one in Frontenac County north of the Kingston City limits. With 24-hour a day ambulances stationed in Sydenham and Sharbot Lake and a 12-hour post in Ompah, response times on a county-wide basis will be vastly better in the coming years than they were in the past and the net result of that will be lives saved and hospital stays shortened.

Still, Parham residents will be left with a bitter taste in their mouths because Ompah's gain will ultimately be their loss, particularly in light of the fact that the consultant's report that started off this entire process did not recommend the Ompah build.

It said that the best, and cheapest option would be to build a new base at Hwy. 509 and Ardoch Road, and that the Parham base should remain open.