Fourth emergency response service on the way

The City of Winnipeg will pursue a fourth emergency response service.

On Thursday, city council cast a final vote to adopt a Winnipeg Community Crisis Response model to divert some non-violent mental health calls to 911. Instead of a police, fire or ambulance response, those calls would be handled by community agencies.

The city estimates more than 10,000 crisis-related police and fire/paramedic calls could be diverted through such a system each year, reducing the workload for emergency crews.

The city will also seek a partnership with the province to support the new emergency response.