A change is coming to 911 service for the Cowichan Valley and Nanaimo area.
The local governments that pay for Central Island 911 say they’re signing on with E-Comm 911, the agency that’s already handling 911 calls for the North Island, Sunshine Coast, and Lower Mainland.
Jody Robertson of E-comm says people who need to call 911 won’t notice any difference, but joining E-comm will have benefits for emergency services.
The City of Nanaimo and the RDN and CVRD, say they did an independent study before deciding to join E-Comm.
“The study concluded that E-Comm has the ability to handle large spikes in incoming 9-1-1 call volume due to the size of the centre and its staffing model,” says Mike Dietrich, Nanaimo’s Manager of Police Support Services. “Combined with its built-in redundancies, we agree that E-Comm provides the best option for the Central Island 9-1-1 partnership both technically and operationally, particularly as the overall 9-1-1 system in Canada evolves in the future.”
The switch-over is set for November 17th. The dispatch centres won’t be changing… 911 operators will still send RCMP calls to a centre in Courtenay, Fire to Nanaimo and Ambulance to Victoria.
