The provincial government has launched a tender for a privately owned air ambulance in St. John’s without consulting air crews, says a union representative, slamming the plan as “absolute foolishness.”
A 13-page tender document on thegovernment’s purchasing agency website said the health department wants to set up a fixed-wing aircraft, with crew, which can fly non-stop from St. John’s to Toronto. Tenders for the bid closed last Tuesday.
The plan comes less than two months after the air ambulance was moved from St. Anthony to Happy Valley-Goose Bay without input from any pilots or medical staff.
While the aircraft in St. John’s is an aging King Air, privatizing the service has Ed Hogan, employee relations officer for the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE), extremely concerned.
“If this is what they’re doing it’s absolute foolishness. It’d be devastating,” Mr. Hogan told the Pen late last week. “We represent the pilots, the co-pilots, the ground crew (at Eastern Health) and I can tell you right now they’ll be adversely effected by this and the rippling effect will probably go down to the paramedics that fly with the patients.”
