Thursday, August 9, 2007

** Father able to attend female flight medic’s funeral, thanks to strangers

** Yukon to overhaul provincial EMS

UNITED STATES NEWS

** The father of a flight paramedic who died in Sunday’s air ambulance crash in New Mexico can now attend her funeral, thanks to the generosity of strangers. That is the word from KRQE (August 8) which said Albert Wonderly, who resides in Nebraska, at first could not afford the cost of a flight. According to the news station, Lincoln residents pitched in on their own after Wonderly’s plight was publicized on a local news show. Still reeling from the loss of daughter Deanna Palmer, 40, Wonderly said he had spoken to her a short while before she died.

CANADA NEWS

** The ongoing ambulance crisis in the Yukon has prompted the provincial government to rethink how it conducts EMS. That is the word from the CBC (August 8) which quoted Health Minister Brad Cathers as saying he would undertake a consensus building process on how to change prehospital care for the better. Cathers made his announcement via press release with the support of Premier Dennis Fentie. The decision comes at a time when volunteer medics in Dawson and Watson Lake are still off the job after resigning en masse earlier this month. Cathers said contingency EMS is in place in both communities. The volunteers had asked for more full time positions to address skyrocketting call volumes.