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EMS Action Group looking for improvements

A Cochrane group fighting for improvements to ambulance services is wondering what it will take for provincial authorities to act on their recommendations aimed at saving lives.
Ambulance
Sandy Gourlie and Gary McHugh gather signatures for their EMS petition at the Cochrane Trade Show on May 7.

A Cochrane group fighting for improvements to ambulance services is wondering what it will take for provincial authorities to act on their recommendations aimed at saving lives.

Gary McHugh is a retired paramedic who joined the Cochrane EMS Crisis Citizen Action Group (CAG) to get the province to fix what he argues they broke when they took over ambulance services from municipalities in 2009.

Cochrane Mayor Jeff Genung and Coun. Marni Fedeyko are advisory members of the citizen group. 

When ambulances first began taking calls decades ago, they were not much more than taxis to the hospital. Ambulance service has evolved over the years into health-care-on-wheels, and as such, McHugh agrees with the province’s rationale in integrating it into the health-care system.

The devil is in the details for McHugh.

“It makes sense. But right now, they’re (Calgary and surrounding communities) sharing all the ambulances,” he said.

“The province’s plan was they’re going to keep ambulances in Cochrane, but it turns out there’s a ‘but.’ They’re saying if we need that ambulance, then we may take it.”

The end result according to McHugh, is that far too often, Cochrane is left with no ambulances available to respond to local emergencies – a situation known as a “Red Alert.”

“They’re constantly in Red Alert. Cochrane’s in Red Alert, Strathmore’s in Red Alert, Calgary’s in Red Alert, so they’re always taking from Peter to pay Paul,” he said.

The local CAG is calling on the province to stop sending ambulances into Calgary and around the region, to free-up paramedics from having to wait in hospital hallways during patient transfers, and to hire private ambulatory companies to transport non-emergency patients.

Ambulances have to wait in line in Calgary until they can hand off patients to hospitals.

McHugh says the CAG has suggested a simple fix for that bottleneck.

“Why not put a nurse in the emergency hallway to take care of, say, four patients, and let those four paramedics get back on the road?” he said.

“We have solutions, but nobody seems willing to put them into action.”

When municipalities ran the service prior to 2009, if an ambulance took a patient to a Calgary hospital, they returned immediately to Cochrane. Now, after a drop-off, they are often dispatched to other Calgary calls, or even as far as Banff.

“So, our ambulance may start in Cochrane, but it doesn’t stay in Cochrane,” McHugh said.

Ali Morrison has been spearheading a petition, which she will present to Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie once they reach 3,000 signatures.

She was at the Cochrane Trade Show on Sunday, helping the group gather signatures.

Morrison said she is looking forward to meeting with Guthrie, armed with the 3,000 signatures, many of which she said were collected by volunteers going door-to-door.

Although she was encouraged to see the 10-Point Plan Alberta Health Services (AHS) put forward in January to add capacity to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and ensure most critical patients receive immediate care, she says the doorstep stories volunteers heard were often scary.

“We’re hearing shocking stories every time we go door-to-door. One woman told us she waited two hours,” she said.

Morrison said she’s eager to see what Guthrie has to say about how Alberta’s 10-Point Plan is going to actually work.

The AHS 10-Point Plan for EMS, released in January:

  1. Hiring more paramedics.
  2. Launching pilot projects to manage non-emergency inter-facility transfers.
  3. Initiating an ‘hours of work’ project to help ease staff fatigue.
  4. Transferring low-priority calls to other agencies in consultation with EMS physicians.
  5. Stopping the automatic dispatch of ambulances to motor vehicle collisions that don’t have reported injuries.
  6. Creating a new integrated operations centre in Calgary, bringing paramedic leads and hospital staff together to improve integration, movement of resources and flow of patients.
  7. Evaluation by an emergency communications officer to determine if an ambulance from out of area, even though it may be closest to a 911 call, is most appropriate to respond.
  8. Implementing a pilot project in Red Deer that will manage most patient transfers between facilities with dedicated transfer units, freeing up ambulances to handle emergency calls.
  9. Allowing ambulances to be pre-empted from assignments, instead of being automatically dispatched when a 911 call is received, to ensure more ambulances are available for critical patients.
  10. Developing a strategic provincial service plan for EMS delivery in the province.

Howard May

About the Author: Howard May

Howard was a journalist with the Calgary Herald and with the Abbotsford Times in BC, where he won a BC/Yukon Community Newspaper Association award for best outdoor writing.
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