OLDS — Mountain View Regional EMS Crisis Citizens’ Action Group chair Daryl Lowey says recently-announced provincial steps to address a shortage of ambulances are good, but they won’t stop his committee from pressuring the province for more action on the problem.
The group is concerned about lack of ambulance availability and wait times in the Mountain View County area.
On Jan. 24, the provincial government announced plans to create an advisory committee to improve emergency medical services (EMS) across Alberta.
The committee will work on both short-term solutions as well as come up with long-term recommendations for a new EMS strategy to be announced by May.
Alberta Health Services (AHS) also announced a 10-point plan to increase ambulance capacity and availability.
“The 10-point plan that the government put together, it’s good, but some of it, apparently people have seen before,” Lowey said during an interview.
“And knowing how government works, we think now is an even more important time for us to be approaching that group – especially now – it gave us a point of focus.
“But we should be approaching them and we should be approaching our municipal government, MLAs, everyone, and still expressing our concerns, because they’re in the process of making decisions and I think we still have to keep the pressure on.
"With the provincial announcement on this advisory board that they’re setting up, we all feel that now is the perfect time to not back down, but to actually become even more vocal.”
Lowey said strategies hammered out by the group include creating a press release expected to be issued this week.
Members of the group also plan to take their message to various government officials, including members of the legislature.
Lowery said he plans to write a letter on behalf of the group to Alberta Health Services “to offer our support or offer our opinions and so on and so forth.”
Members of the group also plan to attend council meetings in various communities throughout the Mountain View County area and perhaps Mountain View County council as well.
“Basically, what we want to do is let municipal governments know that ‘here is an ally,’” Lowery said.
The committee was formed last fall. About 10 people attended their latest meeting on Jan. 27 in the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #105, during which they hammered out terms of reference for the group.
Lowery said they now have about 131 members on their Facebook page.
“We’ve got our terms of reference in place. We feel like we have a solid foundation so we can focus on addressing government and whoever we need to address,” he said.
Lowery said the group has reached out to other similar groups set up across the province. That includes sitting on Zoom calls to discuss issues.
"What we want to do is basically create a unified voice. We’ll still represent our areas locally, but we want to have a unified voice,” he said.
“And this is a provincial issue, so we want to let it be seen as a kind of a provincial umbrella organization.”
