A veteran Sarnia police dispatcher is calling for more officers to help serve the city properly.
Courtney Thornton told the police services board Thursday morning that the service is extremely understaffed.
She said over her 19 years, the number of calls has significantly increased while the number of uniform officers has stayed relatively the same.
Police Chief Norm Hansen said time and time again, dispatchers have to tell callers they don't have an officer available.
"Dispatchers are finding it not only embarrassing, but frustrating because then the public gets heated. Our dispatchers take a lot of abuse over the phone and I don't like that because our dispatchers do a great job and it's a very stressful environment," said Hansen. "As an officer on the street, I have left calls to go to a more important call. If something came in, if you had a bank robbery going on or a shooting or someone being seriously assaulted, our officers would drop calls and go straight to that."
Hansen said that some callers, in non-emergency situations, wait hours for an officer to arrive.
He said many calls require two officers to attend due to safety reasons.
"If we have to dispatch two officers and our officers are all tied up with other calls, we either have to pull them from those other calls or that call waits, and it's up to the dispatchers, and it's very stressful for them, to decide which calls have the most priority."
Hansen said while the new collision reporting centre at police headquarters is helping free up officers somewhat, the problem is not going away.
"It's helping as far as not having to go to minor collisions, and they're very busy here at the Collision Reporting Centre. Also, our new MHeart Program has drastically helped with mental health calls, but the calls don't go away and the officers still have to respond, so they're going from call to call to call."
The police service is waiting for approval from the police board to add four more officers to the existing uniform complement of 111.
Hansen said they have a budget meeting next week to discuss the matter, and that if approved, all four would go directly to community response.