High River council's decided to climb aboard the call for EMS dispatch to return to the local area.

The Commission has asked member municipalities to sign a letter to Health Minister Sarah Hoffman outlining the reasons to return the EMS dispatch to the local area.

Councillor Emile Blokland says it's an issue that been around for years now.

"We desperately need to get the dispatch back to our own communities where we can handle it far more efficiently and without any lost locations, which has been happening these last three years," he says. "We're totally supportive of the direction that FRESC has been taking and as one of the communities involved, we put our name to the letter as well."

He says it might have been more effective for all the mayors of towns in the Foothills Regional Emergency Services Commission to sign one letter,rather than sending them separately.

The dispatch component of the service was removed from the local 911 centre in in 2009 and consolidated with Calgary's Public Safety Communications.

Since that time there have been numerous attempts by FRESC to improve service delivery.

The letter states that "While some improvements have occurred, the system, as it is today, is much less functional than the system our citizens enjoyed prior to consolidation."

Since the local dispatch centre left, there have been problems with knowledge of the rural area, a lack of response coordination and time delays.

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