Despite assertions from the Wildrose Party, Alberta Health Services (AHS) officials deny that changes in the rural ambulance service system are negatively affecting those needing emergency medical services.
Under the flex-dispatch system, already thinly-spread emergency medical units jump from region to region to cover for units sent away for non-emergency transfers, according to a Wildrose press release.
However, Rick Trimp, interim CEO for population health and provincewide services for AHS, told the Gazette that, “in life-threatening cases, we respond as quickly as possible. It's inevitable that response times to isolated rural locations will be longer than in cities, but response times over 30 minutes are very rare.”
In addition to ground ambulances, officials have many resources to pull from in emergency situations, including STARS helicopters, air ambulance planes and local medical first responders.
“The move to one coordinated dispatch system for the province also helps us improve response times by locating the closest ambulance resource and sending it immediately to an emergency.”
The press release continued to state that, under the flex-dispatch system, scarce emergency medical units jump from region to region to cover for ones sent away on non-emergency transfers to major cities, leaving entire corridors of the province dark.
“This is not what Albertans expect,” said Wildrose MLA Pat Stier. “For a farmer who collapses in his field, a half hour to an hour means the difference between life and death. We had a system that worked before this government began to meddle. Now, Minister Horne's ignoring the problem when it's his responsibility to fix.”
In addition to numerous reeves, councillors and mayors, Stier said front-line EMS workers have been contacting his office to express concern over the system.
Fred Horne, minister of health and wellness, noted during a recent press conference that some EMS paramedics work in emergency departments already, and that AHS already has programs underway allowing community paramedics to work in primary health care.
“It's been a long road certainly to achieving this transition in Alberta, but it is working like I said,” said Horne.
He noted a consolidated dispatch service can still work well with integrated service providers that already operate dispatching services in rural areas and smaller municipalities.
“We certainly don't want to get in the way of services that have been serving Albertans well in their home communities for many years, but at the same time, we want to make sure that we never have a situation where an ambulance drives by an emergency…simply because that ambulance is seen to belong to another community.”
He has met with the mayors of Red Deer and Lethbridge recently, and officials are setting up a group to work out the final details of making sure the existing dispatch services can be intertwined with the central dispatch system.
