SUNDRE – With the number of missions flown every year by STARS crews consistently increasing, the organization that next year will be celebrating its 40th anniversary is seeking to secure more sustainability funding through municipal partnerships.
When the first air ambulance started being dispatched almost four decades ago from a single base in Calgary, the organization that was launched as a result of a charitable grassroots movement to better serve rural areas was logging between 50 to 60 missions, council heard on Sept. 30 during a delegation presentation by Jackie Seely, donor relations and development officer, and her colleague Glenda Farnden, senior municipal relations liaison.
“Last year, we flew almost 3,500 missions across six bases,” said Farnden.
The presentation by Seely and Farnden provided an in-depth look not only at the organization’s history and evolution but also the multi-faceted, high-tech emergency services STARS offers alongside a breakdown of broad as well as localized statistics.
In a letter to the mayor and council included in the meeting’s agenda packager, Seely wrote that there over the span of the past five years had been 53 critical inter-facility transfers flown from the local hospital to tertiary care in Calgary or Edmonton with an additional 31 missions flown near Sundre.
“This accounts for 30 per cent of the missions flown within Mountain View County boundaries,” she wrote.
“The most important thing is STARS operates at no cost to the patient,” said Seely during her presentation.
Since taking off with one unit and a single base, STARS has expanded and now boasts six bases across Western Canada in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg, she said.
Her letter also stated that STARS has flown more than 60,000 missions since 1985, averaging 11 missions per day with half of them occurring in Alberta.
Offering a glimpse at how the organization is funded, Seely told council that Alberta Health Services is the group’s largest contributor and that a renewed 10-year service agreement had been signed earlier in 2024 to the tune of approximately $15 million per year.
But that still leaves an outstanding $34.2 million to maintain operations in Alberta alone, she said, adding fundraising efforts including the STARS lottery contributes another roughly $10 million, with corporate as well as individual donations and community-driven fundraisers and municipal partnerships also providing crucial support.
“STARS is very much fuelled by generosity,” she said, adding that nine new rural municipalities and 14 new urban municipalities were brought into the fold in 2023, bringing up to 94 per cent the number of Alberta municipalities supporting STARS.
“Partnership is what has made STARS available for almost 40 years.”
Mountain View County is among the partners contributing funding and is no stranger to seeing the iconic red helicopters in the region’s air space.
“It’s a very busy county with 268 missions so far over the five years and including a good portion of 2024,” said Seely, adding the air ambulances don’t necessarily land exclusively at hospitals either and regularly respond directly to the scene of an emergency.
Citing statistics dating back to 2010, she said 479 residents around the county, including 160 people from Sundre, had been flown by STARS, which provides far more than rapid transport. The Emergency Link Centre located at the base in Calgary is integrated with all dispatch centres and receives more than 37,000 emergency requests every year, although each call does not necessarily result in a mission.
STARS also has transport physicians available at all times who provide medical and procedural guidance on every critical call and can schedule logistical arrangements such as lining up a cardiac cath lab, a neurosurgeon, or CAT scan, she said.
“While that patient is being transported, precious time is being saved on both ends,” she said.
The organization has also completely paid for a huge investment of a $150 million project to acquire a brand new fleet of H145 helicopters, she said.
“They are airborne intensive care unit environments,” she said, adding one is stationed at each base.
Night vision capability has been available for more than 20 years, enabling nighttime operations.
“With over 50 per cent of our calls at night, this is essential,” she said.
The air ambulances boast a gamut of medical supplies and specialized equipment such quick test results for a variety of analyses like blood hemoglobin, a ventilator, and universal blood that can mean “the difference between life or death for many patients.”
There are even high-tech devices onboard including handheld ultrasounds that provide rapid diagnosis of, for example, collapsed lung, heart abnormalities, or even fetal complications as well as a video laryngoscope that enables crew to navigate a difficult airway by allowing them to see the trachea on the screen.
“They use this with severe trauma patients who may have been burned or crushed on impact,” she said.
Equipped with Blutooth, integrated WiFi as well as satellite connectivity, the STARS transport physician is able to receive the patient’s data and forward imaging to the destination hospital before they even arrive, she said.
“A mission can be anywhere from $6,500 to $10,000,” she said, adding certain stroke patients might further drive up that cost by another $2,500 for special medication.
Concluding their presentation, Seely requested council consider approving $5,400 for 2025.
Coun. Owen Petersen asked if the new model is able to land at the Sundre hospital, which Seely confirmed.
“That’s a major benefit that you have a hospital here and you have a helipad here,” she said, adding the H145 is marginally longer in the tail section that the previous BK117 but otherwise similar in size and weight.
Petersen recalled instances years back when patients would be transported by ground ambulance to the Sundre Airport for pickup. But that air ambulance was an older and larger model known as an AW139.
“That’s not the case with the H145,” said Seely. “We’re able to land at your helipad, and also of course at a number of the scene calls where you fire department helps us to making sure it’s secure and safe to either land on the highway or in a field; wherever needed.”
The councillor went onto ask if Sundre was among the few municipalities that had not yet agreed to contribute funding.
Seely said that while the county has been providing funding for some time, STARS simply had not yet branched out into town within the area.
“The town has not been approached yet,” she said.
Petersen said there is plenty of support for STARS in the community as the air ambulances have touched the lives of just about everybody in some way, and asked the representatives if they had any figures on the amount of fundraising dollars generated locally.
Seely said they did not have a precise figure but reiterated the amount of $34.2 million required above government funding is generated by fundraising efforts through for example the lottery, donations, as well as municipal partnerships.
Coun. Jaime Marr asked if the request was only for the 2025 budgetary year or perhaps a multi-year agreement, in which case for how long of a commitment.
“We typically make our ask based on council’s terms,” said Seely. “So being that 2025 is the end of your term, then we would come back next year and hope to secure a four-year pledge agreement or on a standing motion.”
There were two motions prepared for council’s consideration; one to accept the presentation for information and another to include the request on the upcoming fall workshop for further discussion before making a final decision.
Marr moved the latter.
“At our fall strategic advisory meeting, we could discuss this in depth. And if we have to make modifications to the budget, it would come back to the budget open meeting,” she said.
“I didn’t realize 30 per cent of your calls in Mountain View County came from our area, and the technology you have is incredible. I can’t imagine anyone would want to say no, but we have to be prudent.”
Speaking in favour, Coun. Chris Vardas said the service will only become more important as the community continues to grow.
“I think it’s great to be able to have the support, and give the support, to STARS,” said Vardas. “It’s one of those causes that you can’t go wrong with.”
Petersen also favoured the motion and felt further discussion was warranted. Speaking from a personal inclination to simply want to approve the request, the councillor added he would also like to hear what residents think.
“This is a question that I’m going to pose to the residents as I see them, is how do you want to support STARS? You’re already supporting them through your income tax dollars, do you also want to support them through your (local) tax dollars,” he said.
“I would love to support this. I’m curious to see what the residents have to say about how they want to support STARS as an essential service in Sundre.”
Coun. Todd Dalke was not opposed to the motion but asked whether the government was not providing enough funding or if the organization’s needs had increased beyond that baseline.
Farnden said the first 10-year agreement with AHS had seen the government providing $7-plus million per year and added the renewed agreement had increased substantially to $15 million annually, representing approximately 44 per cent of operational costs.
However, that funding does not cover the Emergency Link Centre, nor education and training or administrative expenses, she said.
Mayor Richard Warnock called a vote on the motion, which carried unanimously.
In parting, Seely also expressed gratitude to the Sundre RCMP as well as the local fire department and said, “We couldn’t do what we do best without them.”
