From hearse to ambulance: New book traces the history of P.E.I.’s emergency care
Did you know that ambulance services on Prince Edward Island were once largely provided by funeral homes?
For decades, if you needed immediate medical attention, often someone from the funeral home came to pick you up – in a hearse.
That little-known piece of the island’s history has been discovered in a new book, Answering the Call: People and Stories of PEI Ambulance Services, Now available on Amazon.
Its co-authors are former PEI paramedic Sandy McQuarrie and Islander Sylvia Poirier, who died in late November. Poirier was a former registrar and nurse teacher at Holland College.
island morning9:49island ambulance history book
PEI has a long history when it comes to emergency response. This inspired Islander Sandy McQuarrie to write a new book documenting 100 years of ambulance service in the province. He joins us to share what he uncovered.
MacQuarrie, who now teaches paramedicine in Australia, said the book grew out of a simple idea: let the people who lived this history tell it themselves.
“We wanted people to tell their stories. So Sylvia and I would arrange interviews with them and record them and transcribe them,” he told CBC. island morning,
“We have a lot of young people attending ambulance calls as teenagers, sending ambulances to high schools to pick up someone so they can assist on calls, husbands and wives running ambulance calls together, by the 1970s there were all kinds of transportation from horse and wagon to hearses to station wagons to purpose-built vans.”
early days
The book traces 100 years of change and at least 35 different ambulance services beginning around 1905 – when MacQuarrie believes the island’s first ambulance operated in Charlottetown – until 2005 when Island EMS took over as the province’s sole ambulance provider.
The authors interviewed several former ambulance workers and their families, dug through old reports and letters, combed through archives and even took to Facebook to piece the stories together.
In the early days, there was no organized emergency medical system, McQuarrie said.
“At that time funeral directors were starting to have hearses… so they would come and take you away,” he said.
“They did it because – I’m being completely honest – no one else was going, although there were other people who did participate.”
MacQuarrie noted that in 1915, Prince County Hospital had its own purpose-built, horse-drawn ambulance.
Over time, funeral homes transformed ambulance work into a more formal service. By the 1930s, many were advertising ambulance offerings.
The care was basic, often just pickup and delivery, but “what came out in some of the stories was compassion and empathy,” McQuarrie said.
‘March towards commercialization’
McQuarrie said that by the 1950s and ’60s, funeral homes were strongly, sometimes competitively, involved in the ambulance business.
Around Charlottetown, he said, the four services competed directly with each other. There were two competing providers in Summerside for almost half a century.
Yet they worked together, and pressure for professional standards came partly from within the industry.
“They evolved,” McQuarrie said. “They developed their own standards because there wasn’t a lot of regulation.”
One section of the book, called The March Towards Paramedicine, was particularly important to Poirier, who wanted to document that era of change.
The pressure for better training was not just from ambulance providers. In 1955, the Women’s Institute passed a resolution calling for every ambulance attendant to have first aid training – something that was not yet standard. Funeral directors also supported this.
A major government report in the 1970s took things further. It suggested first aid training for all attendants and purpose-built ambulances – and the province pledged its support.
“That began what I call the march toward commercialization,” McQuarrie said.
“Sylvia was so adamant that we had to put her in the book as a separate section. This section… is about Sylvia and everything she went through.”
Only ambulance services take over
By the 1970s, a new model was emerging: ambulance-only operations.
McQuarrie noted that in Charlottetown, Neal and Gail MacDonald purchased four ambulance licenses held by local funeral homes and launched Neal Ambulance.
Similar activities were seen in other parts of the island.
“That was a game-changer.”
By the 1980s, services were largely removed from funeral homes. As of 1999, five ambulance operators remain: Kings County EMS (Montague and Souris), Neal Ambulance (Charlottetown), Royal Ambulance (Summerside), West Prince Ambulance (O’Leary) and Rooney Ambulance (Alberton).
McQuarrie said, “They were modern. The staff were well trained. They were starting to move forward.” “They had medical direction, purpose-built ambulances.”
A long-awaited provincial study released in 1999 recommended moving toward a single operator. PEI issued a request for proposals in 2005 and Medavie EMS was awarded the contract. The company began operations on PEI in April 2006 through its subsidiary, Island EMS.
‘She was a beacon’
McQuarrie said the book is, in many ways, a tribute to Poirier, who was a driving force in paramedicine education on P.E.I. and helped start the paramedicine program at Holland College.
“She was a beacon,” he said. “She was above the horizon and could see around. And the time I spent with her, I was very fortunate. She was a storyteller.”
As Poirier’s health declined, finishing the book became a race against time.
McQuarrie said, “Recently, the book was about to go into production and we worked very, very, very, very hard to get it done, to get it into his hands.”
“And we did.”
