(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

When the B.C. Ambulance Service needs to call out for paramedics for cities like Kamloops, it leaves a shortage in smaller communities in the area.

This is common and can sometimes be a benefit, but the head of the paramedics' union said it's only effective when smaller communities are fully staffed.

"It's very real that a lot of communities are out of service," Troy Clifford, Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. union president, said. "As soon as a call comes in, paramedics are dragged into Kamloops to cross cover the region, and that depletes those smaller areas."

The ambulance service isn't bound by municipal or regional boundaries, so when Kamloops is short staffed, as it was earlier this week, it could pull paramedics from Barriere, Ashcroft or even further to the Okanagan, if needed.

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Interior Health is facing an ongoing and highly publicized staffing crisis affecting Royal Inland Hospital and rural clinics alike. On Wednesday night, June 8, the Clearwater emergency department was closed for the evening because of "unforeseen limited staffing."

The public is notified about the closure, then told to either call 9-1-1 or head to Royal Inland Hospital in case of emergency. But it isn't clear how quickly a paramedic will be there in an emergency.

"They say just call the ambulance. Have they coordinated? Because we don't have additional resources," Clifford said. "If there's an expectation we have an abundance of ambulances, we need to be more transparent."

B.C. Emergency Health Services scrambled to fill two ambulances with four paramedics in Kamloops on Tuesday night.

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"This is not a new, isolated issue to Kamloops. We've had shortages in Kamloops for over a year following the heat dome," Clifford said. "Yes, it's a problem, but it's a problem across the province."

In the southern Interior, he said Okanagan and Shuswap communities feel the same short staffing pressures. He pointed to Vernon, Kelowna, Salmon Arm and Penticton as being "regularly short staffed."

Salmon Arm and Penticton, he said, can often be left with emergency calls for staffing.

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"I've seen crazy numbers of response times in Penticton because we don't have enough ambulances," Clifford said, explaining that they can often take longer because paramedics are driving into the city from other communities.

"I've been sounding the alarm about this for some time," he said. "(Paramedics) need support."

On June 7, there was just one paramedic staffed for the Kamloops overnight shift, according to a social media post from unnamed paramedics. The ambulance service did not confirm this when asked, but it did say it had two ambulances staffed.

In an emailed statement, a B.C. Emergency Health Services spokesperson said there is a "strong system" to send ambulances from surrounding stations, while it is also "making every effort" to recruit for open positions.

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