When control and authority over something is centralized, resources end up being redirected to serve the center..In the Soviet Union, nations were pillaged to feed Mother Russia. In Canada, outlying provinces are milked of fiances to serve Ontario and Quebec. When Alberta moved ambulances from municipal control into the umbrella of Alberta Health Services (AHS), big cities began pulling ambulances from neighbouring municipalities. Rural citizens have been put in danger and they are becoming fed up..Ambulance services in Alberta used to be managed by municipalities. They were often integrated with local fire services which allowed for cross-training and efficient use of resources in areas with limited demand. In April of 2009, the Ed Stelmach government moved all ambulance services into the authority of AHS. It was a solution in search of a problem and rural communities are now paying the price for the move.. townhallDon Sharpe speaks at the Okotoks Elks Hall .Don Sharpe is an Albertan paramedic with decades of service and he’s speaking out on the issue. Sharpe organized town hall meetings in Airdrie, Strathmore, Cochrane and Okotoks. The meetings were all well attended and action committees of citizens were formed in each town tasked with pressuring the government into addressing this issue which is sliding under the radar for many. I attended the Okotoks meeting and the numbers presented to us at the meeting were shocking and sobering..The EMS statistics that Sharpe shared with the group had been acquired through a Freedom of Information (FOIP) request made by a fellow paramedic. That paramedic has since been placed on administrative leave by AHS for rocking the boat. The bureaucracy is making it clear to paramedics that they do not want people speaking up about the EMS crisis Alberta’s experiencing..In 2020, the (greater) Calgary region experienced 3,324 EMS “red alerts.” Those are times when there are zero ambulances available for the entire Calgary zone. There were also 36,570 “orange alerts” for the Calgary zone. Those are triggered when there are only one to three ambulances available for the entire zone. The Calgary zone encompasses a population of 1,718,000 people. It is shocking to think how often such a large number of people are without any form of ambulance service..When the Calgary zone is short of ambulances, they “borrow” from one of the 19-22 ambulances that may be available in neighboring communities. AHS can quickly end a red alert by calling in an ambulance from other regions. Ambulances can be called in from as far away as Banff at times..Being close to Calgary, the City of Airdrie is constantly being tapped for its ambulances. In 2020, Airdrie ambulances handled 3,380 emergencies in the city of Calgary. While Airdrie was left without service, they ended up tapping into their neighbors when they needed services for themselves. Ambulances from as far as Linden, Three Hills and Olds attended 1,487 emergencies in Airdrie while Airdrie’s ambulances were in Calgary. Those smaller communities were then left with no service at all. This story is repeated with every community that borders the City of Calgary. With AHS holding the ultimate authority, municipalities have no control over their ambulance services as they all get directed into larger centers..The reasons EMS services are so overstretched are myriad. The opioid crisis has put heavy strains upon EMS providers as there were 1,485 EMS incidents in response to overdoses in the second quarter of 2020 in Alberta. Understaffing and overworking of EMS workers led to employee shortages as stress and exhaustion takes its toll on paramedics. Poor resource management has led to ambulances being used for non-emergency patient transport at times while other ambulances find themselves tied up for hours at hospitals waiting for a nurse to sign off and take their patients from them..Hospital staff in emergency departments discovered they can take pressure off themselves by using paramedics for hallway hospital care. Paramedics can’t simply dump their patients at a hospital and run. They are bound to stay until the patient is formally admitted. Paramedics are reporting spending hours or even entire days sitting around hospital emergency departments while the city outside is in a red alert status due to a lack of ambulance services. The stats back it up as AHS documents indicate paramedics in Alberta spent a staggering 100,352 hours in hospital hallways in 2020. It is easy to see this happening for one’s self if they happen to go to a Calgary hospital. I drove to the Rockyview Hospital at two different, random times and saw no less than eight ambulances parked outside the emergency department.. fullamOutside of Rockyview Hospital in Calgary, Alberta .The problem is huge and it has cost lives. In Cochrane, a young girl died of anaphylaxis when a simple epinephrine shot could have saved her. Unfortunately, EMS took 30 minutes to arrive and it was too late. How many ambulances were idling in Calgary hospitals while that young girl died for lack of the most simple of interventions? It is little wonder that stress is taking such a heavy toll on paramedics..Rural firefighters are often called to serve as paramedics in a stopgap measure when no local ambulances are available. The firefighters have first aid training and some resources, but they are not full paramedics and they are not equipped to transport patients. Communities are put at risk of slow fire rescue response when their firefighters are out on medical calls..The first step to addressing this crisis is to bring it to light. AHS is hostile and intractable on the issue. At the Okotoks meeting I attended, local UCP MLA RJ Sigurdson openly expressed his frustration in trying to bring attention to the issue. While he is indeed a government MLA, he appears to be getting no more cooperation from the monolithic bureaucracy than anybody else is..Don Sharpe found the town hall meetings to be a success so far. While mainstream media has been absent, local media has attended, along with many concerned citizens. Sharpe has been asked to organize more meetings for other towns and he will be doing so. The committees formed at these meetings will carry on with organizing and acting in order to pressure the government and AHS to respond to this crisis in first response care..Health care systems are naturally large and complicated. A person doesn’t need a medical degree to understand how critical timely response is when it comes to emergency care. Every minute counts when a person is in medical trauma and it is not acceptable for rural citizens to wait for up to an hour for care while city hospitals tie up their local paramedics for hallway care..In true Alberta style, grassroots citizens are standing up for themselves. They won’t let this issue continue unchecked..Cory Morgan is the Alberta Political Columnist for the Western Standard and Host of the Cory Morgan Show
