Vast Majority of BC lacks 24-hour ALS helicopter coverage

The primary purpose of modern EMS helicopter programs is to bring definitive medical care (typically a specialized doctor and or flight nurse or ALS paramedic) as quickly as possible to the location of the critical/urgent care needs patient. The secondary role is to take that sick or injured patient to the hospital best-suited to treat the patient's condition, eg. trauma unit, burn unit, cardiac unit etc.  The tertiary role of an EMS helicopter is to carry out interfacility transports (form one hospital to another) for high-acuity patients.

Interestingly, That's not how BCEHS chooses to employ its EMS helicopters. Their function is primarily to act as a means of interfacility transports. Another problem is BC has contracted the wrong helicopter types for the mission. The S-76 and Bell 412 are both very large helicopters that are not ideal for landing in tightly-confined or snow-covered areas. There are better EMS helicopters on the market for this role.

The above map shows ALS paramedic-staffed, 24/7/365 EMS helicopter programs in the Pacific Northwest U.S. and Western Canada. As anyone can see, there is a clear lack of ALS-staffed EMS helicopters in BC.

The map shows just how few ALS paramedic-staffed helicopter resources are available to the people of B.C. Data for the U.S. programs data was gathered from Adam's Air Med Atlas.

Note: The Kamloops-based Bell 412 and Prince Rupert-based S-76 Sikorsky helicopters (both contracted to the B.C. Ambulance Service) do not appear on the map as they are not Advanced Life Support paramedic staffed 24 hour per day, seven days per week. In fact, the BCEHS EMS helicopter based in Prince Rupert is not ALS-staffed at any time of day and the BCEHS contracted Kamloops-based EMS helicopter is a daylight-only operation. All the other Canadian and American EMS helicopter bases shown are 24-hour services. Outside of British Columbia, in any other Western country, there are no other medical helicopter services staffed by Basic Life Support  paramedics. All except BC's are ALS-staffed.

Alberta has had three state-of-the-art, doctor-staffed EMS helicopters for more than 30 years. Also, there are currently more than 260 specialty doctor-staffed EMS helicopters working in western Europe - Europeans started using doctor-staffed EMS helicopters in the mid 1950s,  BC has never had even one doctor-staffed EMS helicopter.

In Prince George, where helicopters were once contracted to pick up doctors at the hospital helipad and bring them to accident scenes, that helipad at University Hospital of Northern B.C. was closed and was built over in a hospital expansion in the early-2000s. Hospital helipads in other cities continue to be decommissioned in other BC cities by hospital administrators.