Important information about 999

By Michelle Osmond | Nov. 24, 2015

The number 999 is used in many countries for emergency services. Memorial’s campus community is very diverse with students, faculty and staff from all over the world, many of whom may call 999 in the event of an emergency. 

In the past, Memorial’s Information Technology Services (ITS) has forwarded 999 calls to 911, Canada’s emergency services number. However, 999 is now registered as local exchange by Telus and more specifically a federal government office. As a result, calls from St. John’s campus to those offices are incorrectly being routed to 911 services.

This means no one on the St. John’s campus can call the local 999 extensions and that calls are being unnecessarily forwarded to emergency services. Because of this, ITS will no longer forward 999 to 911. Calls to 999 will be routed to the local exchange to which they normally belong.

“Given this is currently an emergency number that many people are accustomed to, the absence of this could have a potentially serious impact,” said Steve Greene, director, Information Technology Services. “It’s certainly possible that people have used 999 in the past and would expect it to work. So we’re hoping whomever this is relevant for, gets the message about using 911 instead so that if they have an emergency, it can be responded to.”

This change only affects calls placed from a Memorial VoIP phone and does not apply to mobile devices.

For an emergency on campus, please call 4100 from a campus phone or 864-4100 from a mobile phone. For an emergency off campus, please call 911 which is the emergency services number in Canada.


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