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The largest paramedic team in eastern Ontario was blindsided by news that the provincial Tories might merge services, but the top manager who oversees the Ottawa Paramedic Service says staff have been told to keep focusing on serving the public rather than the bureaucracy.

There was talk in the provincial budget about merging dispatch centres, and there had been discussions involving the city about how it would happen, but the merger of paramedic services “wasn’t something anyone had on their radar,” Anthony Di Monte, general manager of emergency and protective services, said Thursday.

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The province is thinking about merging 59 paramedic services to create 10 services, which has prompted municipalities to sound alarm bells.

Di Monte said it’s hard to make sense of the move to consolidate services since the details are scarce.

No one knows if the province wants to take full control of paramedic services, making local paramedics employees of the province, or have municipally run administrative centres covering larger jurisdictions.