North Bay's police chief is frustrated with the alarming increase in 9-1-1 calls.
At Tuesday's police board Meeting, Scott Tod indicated that the service received 799 9-1-1 calls that did not require emergency service.
That is up from the already high number of around 550 to 600 per month.
"Last month we had a high number of calls to 9-1-1 service that did not need an urgent or emergent response from police, fire, or paramedics services," said Tod.
"People were calling seeking information that is widely available on social media applications, through 'Alertable' or through calling other ministries or agencies that can provide that information.
"There are a high number of calls that are not intended for 9-1-1 such as pocket dials or misdialed calls that come into 9-1-1 where there is no one available for our call takers to talk to."
Tod says dispatchers are required by policy to call back or attempt to call back that number as much as possible.
"When we do not get an answer we have to make a decision whether we are going to dispatch resources or not so that is an extreme problem as I mentioned. almost 300 more calls this month in May compared to the month before," he said.
Tod says some of those non-emergency calls include residents asking about weather and road closures.
Police services such as the North Bay Police Service believe, despite the embarrassment, residents who make a pocket-dial should still contact the operator to let them know it was a mistake.
"It is almost an abuse of the 9-1-1 application by people looking for information and also an abuse in the fact that they are not guarding their mobile devices so to prevent children from using 9-1-1 or inappropriately using 9-1-1 or being pocket-dialed by 9-1-1 or some other inadvertent way," said Tod.
