Dr. Peter Ransford, a retired paediatric physician, and Mr. Carsen Smith, the owner of the Metropolitan Ambulance Service of Vancouver, became the driving force behind the new provincial BC Ambulance Service (BCAS).
Dr. Ransford
Throughout his career as a physician, Dr. Ransford served on several local and national committees involving transport of the critically ill and injured. Acting as the pre-hospital care subject matter specialist for Dr. Foulkes' focus group, the papers Dr. Ransford compiled became the blueprint for the BCAS. Dr. Ransford received the Order of BC in 2008 in recognition of his pioneering work to help create the BCAS.
Mr. Carsen Smith
Mr. Carsen Smith was the operator of the largest private ambulance service in British Columbia. A true visionary, Mr. Smith's knowledge of the inner workings of EMS made him the natural choice to team up with Dr. Ransford in the development of the BCAS.
The amalgamation of the large number of disparate EMS providers into one provincial service was an enormous task. Through the efforts of Dr. Ransford, Carsen Smith and their dedicated team, BCAS first took over the private operators and volunteer agencies, permitting municipal fire departments to continue providing pre-hospital emergency medical services under agreements with BCAS.
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