All 12 volunteer ambulance attendants in Dawson City walked off the job at 10:00 this morning in support of their Watson Lake colleagues.

'This isn't a volunteer service anymore. It's gone beyond being a volunteer,' Margie Baikie, the spokesperson for the attendants in Dawson, told the Star.

'We can only put our lives on hold for a certain amount of time, but it seems like everything we've been doing to this point has fallen on deaf ears.'

The attendants brought a proposal before Dawson City council in April. It asked for the Yukon government to either provide three paid attendants or one full-time paid attendant.

Council unanimously supported the proposal and included its own letter of support, all of which was sent to Joanne Fairlie, the government's assistant deputy minister for health services.

Baikie said they never received any response.

With their mass resignation this morning, the Dawson attendants have made several requests for improvements to the town's emergency medical services.

These include providing pay for four full-time attendants, for all employees to receive the same amount of training as attendants based in Whitehorse do, and for a minimum of two Dawson volunteers to receive primary care paramedic training at the expense of YTG Health and Social Services.

Until improvements are made, the attendants will not be returning to service.

Dawson Mayor John Steins said today service will currently be operated by a YTG employee stationed in Dawson, who will serve as an ambulance driver on-call. An attendant from Whitehorse is being transferred to Dawson to help attend to calls.

'We obviously cannot be left without ambulance service, but I don't see how one YTG employee working as an ambulance driver, on-call 24-7, is a proper solution,' Steins said.

'The Yukon government has to try and work towards a reasonable resolution here. It's not lost on anyone that Watson Lake and Dawson City volunteers have reached the end of their rope, and it's up to senior government to step in and either implement some form of service or work something out with the volunteers.'

Steins recognizes how difficult it must have been for the volunteers to accept this recent action, given the type of people who provide the service in the first place.

'But the alarm bell has been sounded,' he added. 'How radical is it to have your ambulance service quit? That isn't something that just happens at the drop of a hat.'

Baikie said the volume of calls has increased steadily over the past five years, and that they have already received 150 so far this year.

With the peak of the tourist season coming, and the Dawson Music Festival taking place next weekend, that number is likely to grow quickly in the coming weeks.

Baikie has been a volunteer ambulance attendant for just over two years and became supervisor of the Dawson group in July 2006. She said that on average, volunteers don't last much longer than two years on the job before they burn out, and are lucky if they stay on longer.

'This is not a new issue, it's been ongoing for many years,' Baikie said. 'I inherited someone else's problem when I became supervisor, and it's not right to peg this on someone else. It shouldn't become someone else's burden.'

Eight active volunteers in Watson Lake handed in their dispatch radios on Monday, also citing burn-out and seeking compensation for when their attendants are on-call.

There will be a public forum at the Watson Lake Recplex Community Hall at 7:00 this evening, where volunteers, council, the Liard First Nation, physicians and nurses will be on hand to answer questions from the general public.

Beatrice Felker, the director of the Yukon Emergency Medical Services, and rural EMS manager and training officer Barry Kidd will also be present at the meeting.

Felker and Kidd had a teleconference with four Watson Lake volunteers Wednesday afternoon. The rest of the volunteers were unable to take part in the meeting due to work or being out of town.

Pauline Lund, one of the volunteer attendants present, said the meeting was a major disappointment.

'It was like they were just hearing our complaints yesterday for the first time,' Lund said. 'This has been going on, to some extent or another, for 16 months or more. There was a lot of discontent after.'

Lund was especially disappointed that no minutes were kept during a meeting which took place in April, which left Watson Lake volunteers with the impression that a proposal was being put forth to the government. Lund found out during the teleconference yesterday that there never was a proposal.

'It just seems to be a constant circle of disappointments and failures,' she said.

Health and Social Services Minister Brad Cathers said earlier this afternoon the first priority is to provide adequate interim coverage in the areas affected, which is difficult given the short notice received.

Cathers had planned to attend the public forum in Watson Lake tonight. However, after the department received notice of the mass resignation in Dawson, he decided it would be best to remain in Whitehorse, where he could be fully engaged in communicating with all the communities.

He urged rural volunteers in other communities to contact department officials if they have similar frustrations or concerns, instead of handing in their radios.

'If they feel upset about what their representatives have agreed to in recent discussions, we'd like them to directly contact officials so we can help out as best we can,' Cathers said.

'Services are being stretched a little bit thinner, but the ambulance service is still being provided in all the areas affected to the best of our ability.'

Cathers said there seems to have been a miscommunication between the volunteer groups and their representatives.

During recent discussions to begin a new volunteer agreement, Cathers said a number of issues were addressed and a commitment was made by the government that it would look at a number of proposals provided by rural community volunteers.

The majority of volunteers were pleased with the discussions, to Cathers' knowledge, so when resignations began earlier this week, he was surprised.

Cathers hopes the volunteers can be brought back to the table quickly for further discussions. If they don't return, however, Cathers said the current interim levels of coverage will have to be enhanced.

Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell said today either Cathers or Premier Dennis Fentie should be present at tonight's public meeting in Watson Lake, and it's time for them to sit down and speak personally with the volunteers.

'It's really ridiculous that it's reached this point,' Mitchell said. 'I wouldn't be surprised if the volunteers in Haines Junction or Teslin take similar action sometime soon.'

Mitchell worked as a volunteer ambulance attendant for more than 10 years when he lived in Atlin and said he can empathize with the volunteers.

'It's really difficult on your work and your personal life,' Mitchell said. 'Sure, you get paid when you get called out, but it doesn't compensate for the stress and having to be in radio contact, and the knowledge that you could be called out at a moment's notice from family gatherings or work.

'Whether you're living there, passing through the area or visiting, it's comforting to know there are people in these communities who have the skills necessary to provide that care. They should be treated better than this.'

In the legislature May 14, Mitchell introduced a motion calling on the government to spend some of its $85-million surplus to train and retain ambulance personnel in the rural communities.

The Association of Yukon Communities sent a letter to the government which included similar resolutions, and neither group received a response.

Mitchell said there are plenty of solutions for providing compensation, including having the volunteers working on a rotational schedule. It would result in full-time wages not having to be paid to all of the volunteers all the time, only for when they are on-call.