www.jems.com
Canada belongs to ISMERLO - International SubMarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office, which is a NATO organization as well as other countries that have submarines and potential rescue vehicles/capabilities, largely to deal with military subs that become disabled. For us, we deploy SAR assets as well as ship portable recompression chambers, as well as diving medical personnel, to deal with finding and treating casualties. It stands to reason that Canada would send resources, especially since the search area was reasonably close to Canada, and as is customary, mariners or submariners in distress are mariners or submariners in distress, regardless of where they are. To me it would fall into the "Shit Happens" file, cc'd to the "Good Training That Needed Doing Anyway" file. The plane was going to have to fly for proficiency anyway - here it was No Duff.
You have no idea the number of times I've seen patients arrive by car that could hardly walk, or were having an active stroke or heart attack. Part of the problem is that ambulance is not an insured service under most provincial health plans. The fees vary widely from province-to-province from a low of $45 to a high of about $250. Additionally, there's far too many people taking a cabulance, so response times are longer than optimal, and many people feel they can't wait the 9 minutes it takes for the ambulance to arrive. Further, ambulance funding models incentivise transport, taking yet more cars off the road. Many fire departments are blended services, and rely on ambulance fees. Add in time spent waiting at hospital to offload, and there's another compounding factor.
army.ca
