New Whitehorse ambulance base opens Monday

A second ambulance base at the top of Two Mile Hill will take 10 minutes off the response time for some emergencies in Whitehorse, emergency services managers say.

A temporary base will open on Monday at the government compound overlooking the Hamilton Boulevard intersection at the Alaska Highway.

It will bring thousands more residents within a response time of nine minutes, which is the national standard.

"This is a good location for us, because it is accessing the Alaska Highway and gives us the opportunity to either go right or left down the highway, as well as go up into the Copper Ridge area," said Terry Klassen, the new base manager.

More than 5,000 calls for ambulances from the Whitehorse hospital were made last year, and half came from outside the downtown core.

It takes nine or 10 minutes to get from the current base at the hospital to the top of Two Mile Hill, said David Moriaux, Emergency Medical Services operations manager, putting residents beyond the hill out of reach of a prompt response time.

"If we're based up here, we don't have that 10 minutes to get to the start point," Moriaux said.

Construction of a permanent structure at the location should start next year, Klassen said, and it's expected to be ready within two years.