After more than 50 years, a Manitoba border town is losing its volunteer ambulance service.

Emerson, an important port-of-entry on the border with  North Dakota, has fallen victim to a change in provincial regulations that determine who can work in an ambulance.

Previously, the ambulance could operate with one emergency medical responder plus a driver who required less medical training.

Now the driver must also be trained as an emergency medical responder. The community does not have someone who fits that bill.

"Of course I find it disappointing," fire chief Al Dupuis told CBC News. "We've been providing the volunteer service for the past 55 years."

Parked on Canada Day

The ambulance in Emerson will be permanently parked July 1, leaving the community's 700 residents to rely on other rural communities in the area for ambulance services.

"Somebody in distress will have to wait, I would say, a minimum of 30 minutes before an ambulance could get here from Morris or Altona," Dupuis said.

Health Minister Tim Sale said modern medicine requires a higher degree of skill, one he acknowledged smaller communities may have a difficult time providing.

MLA blames centralization
 
But Emerson MLA Jack Penner doesn't buy that argument.
 
"I've been told by the Emerson ambulance staff that we've never lost a person because of lack of staff or lack of professionality on the ambulances," Penner said. 

"I think what the government is doing is attempting to centralize the application of the whole ambulance system in a manner I think is not conducive to the best service in rural Manitoba."

Penner said he believes the loss of local ambulance service puts patient safety in jeopardy.