REGINA (Staff) – The sturdy grain elevator, long a symbol of the wheat trade and the towering optimism of prairie communities, has a new healthy meaning for small towns near Regina.
Five Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevators will become health beacons. They will host antennae and transmitting equipment to allow emergency personnel in Regina to stay in contact with ambulances and first responders in rural areas where cellular and radio-phones don’t reach.
“We have people out there, but the problem we have is activating them,” said Glen Perchie, the associate director of emergency services for the Regina Health District. The pool will help install the equipment in elevators at Cupar, Milestone, Odessa, Lumsden and Simpson.
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When someone in Cupar wants to call an ambulance, they have to phone the local care home. Whoever answers then has to call for the ambulance. The person who needs emergency help can’t get assistance from Regina until the ambulance arrives at the hospital, Perchie said. As soon as an ambulance leaves Cupar, it loses radio contact.
With the new system, people in rural areas will be able to call one number and be immediately patched through to someone who will notify the ambulance and be able to offer immediate medical advice.
The new system will also allow Regina emergency workers to stay in touch with ambulances, something they can’t always do now because not all rural communities have cell-phone transmitters or radio towers, Perchie said.
The project is an attempt to provide rural residents the same quality of emergency service that city residents have, he said.
