British Columbia Ambulance Service

The British Columbia Ambulance Service (BCAS) is the sole ambulance service and provider of pre-hospital emergency care in the province of British Columbia, Canada, and is one of the largest Emergency Medical Services (EMS) services in North America. The BCAS also provides inter-facility patient transfer services in circumstances where a patient needs to be moved between health care facilities. The BCAS has a fleet of over 450 ground ambulances operating from 190 stations across the province. Dispatch centres in Vancouver, Victoria, and Kamloops provide call-taking and ambulance dispatching services to the entire province. In addition, BCAS operates an airevac program that utilizes both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft. As of December 1st, 2008, the BCAS employs 2,153 part-time and 1,482 full-time paramedics for a total of 3,635. There are approximately 315 management and administrative employees in the BCAS.