The GPS systems in all Peel ambulances were updated over the weekend after the paramedic union warned local lives were being endangered by outdated maps that did not show newer streets.

“With Caledon, Brampton and Mississauga growing so fast, entire subdivisions are invisible to older GPS units and that could mean delays to the lifesaving treatment provided by paramedics,” according to a news release last week from Peel Paramedic Union OPSEU Local 277.

One GPS unit was five years out of date, according to Dave Wakely, president of Local 277.

He said the union found as many as 22 units out of the region’s fleet of approximately 100 trucks with GPS systems that hadn’t been updated since 2013 or 2014.

Peel paramedics chief Peter Dundas said, after the media release went out, he made the decision to call in staff over the weekend to not only remediate the older versions – of which he said there were only about a dozen – but to install the 2016 version onto all of the region’s ambulances.

The updating of the units was already a “work in progress,” Dundas said, but he made the decision to speed up the process after the union’s warning.

“We were already doing it, maybe not to the satisfaction of the union,” Dundas said.

Wakely said the union does not believe the updates were being done. When the union raised the issue with management in March, they were told the updates – which are released by Garmin four times a year – are done when trucks go in for routine maintenance. But, the union canvassed members and 22 responded with outdated GPS systems on their trucks, including one that had not been updated since 2010. Wakely said six months later, by September, no updates had been done.

“There is a problem,” Wakely said. “(The updates are) done ad hoc.”

“A few of the units did have some outdated software and we have remediated it,” Dundas said.