911 changes worry P.E.I. police

P.E.I. is centralizing its 911 services, sparking police concerns the new system may slow response time.

Currently, three different agencies handle callers Charlottetown police, Summerside police and the RCMP. The government announced Wednesday that ithas hired Island EMS to handle all 911 calls on the island.

The centralized service is intended to speed response time.

Dale Bartlett, the acting general manager at Island EMS, said Thursday that the changes would lead to improvements.

"We see this as a huge advantage for people using the 911 system.This will go a long way to reducing the time it takes to process a call," he said.

Under the present system, a 911 call for police from Summerside goes directly to the Summerside dispatcher. The new system would route it to the Charlottetown hub, which would re-route it to Summerside's police station.

If it is a fireemergency in Charlottetown or Summerside, staff will forward calls to those fire departments. Outside the two cities, the centrewill dispatch emergency vehicles directly.

Police worry about safety

Deputy Chief Richard Collins said that could cause problems.

"We have officer safety issues and public safety issues. Where officers respond to high risk calls, there's certain questions that have to be asked, and certain information has to be obtained before officers respond," he said.

"We're concerned about the time it's going to take for a call to be processed. If it's coming from the Summerside area, having to be phoned to Charlottetown and then turned around and relayed back to Summerside, [it]will certainly cause a delay. Whether that delay will be unfortunately too long for someone, we don't know that at this point."

Doug Currie, the minister for justice and public safety, said safety would not be compromised. He said the new centralized system was approved only after discussions with first-responders.

He pointed out that currently, if the 911 operator in Summerside is on the phone, other calls are automatically routed to Charlottetown andthere has never been a problem.

The new centralized system is expected to up and running by June.