NDP releases FOIP documents on ambulance shortages in Cochrane

The NDP’s Municipal Affairs critic Joe Ceci came to Cochrane last Friday to share documents his party received through a freedom of information request (FOIP), which show that ambulances were pulled from towns surrounding Calgary more than 30,000 times in three years.

“So what we know from the FOIP request is that Cochrane ambulances were pulled to Calgary 1,000 times in 2019 and that increased to over 3,700 times in 2021/22,” he said.

FOIP is the acronym for information requests made in Alberta through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

“These ambulances are being pulled from Cochrane to service people in Calgary because there’s not enough ambulances there,” Ceci said.

“Same thing in Airdrie – it’s worse there – Chestermere, Strathmore, same thing. Explosions of red alerts in their own towns as a result of inadequate care in Calgary.”

Ceci said the reason Calgary is having trouble with supply of paramedics is they’re burnt out. Some paramedics on temporary contracts are re-considering their futures, he added.

“They have the crappiest contracts you’ve ever seen, three-month contracts, rolled over, rolled over, they don’t get benefits, they don’t get any of the kinds of things normal employees get.”

The MLA said the opioid crisis is just adding to the pressure on paramedics.

“We want government to address the need, to make sure there’s enough ambulances in Alberta. And the way they’re treating paramedics is abysmal, in terms of those short-term casual contracts,” he said.

He called for the UCP government to act on the three recommendations from the paramedics, which are:

"Paramedics must get off shift on time. Exhaustion and burnout are decimating the numbers of EMS crews; paramedics must be offered permanent full-time jobs instead of being forced into 89-day casual contracts with no benefits and no job security; and, the UCP must provide more harm reduction services to ease strain on ambulances. The drug poisoning crisis creates huge demand on ambulances and emergency rooms and this is preventable."

Ceci argued the UCP needs to fix the ambulance crisis, instead of focusing on their leadership contest.

“Listen to the paramedics,” he said. “And treat all of health care with a lot more respect than they’re currently showing to doctors, nurses, allied professionals.

“They need to get back to work for Albertans. What they seem preoccupied with is their leadership and internal divisions,” he said.

“Albertans need them to fix EMS.”

The FOIP request illustrates the problem has gotten much worse over the last couple of years. The documents show Airdrie ambulances responded to calls in Calgary 2,772 times in 2019-20, but that number nearly tripled to 7,358 times in 2021-22.

Meanwhile, Cochrane ambulances responded to Calgary events 1,007 times in 2019-20, increasing to 3,728 times in 2021/22.

Chestermere sent ambulances to Calgary 1,017 times in 2019-20 and 1,653 times in 2021-22. Strathmore’s numbers skyrocketed from 857 ambulances responding in Calgary in 2019-20 to 3,159 being sent in 2022/23.

AHS wait time reports on their website show Cochrane’s median wait time remained relatively unchanged between June 2020 and June 2022, hovering around nine minutes. Response time for 90 per cent of calls happened within 15 minutes in June 2020 and rose to 20 minutes in June 2022.

In the same time period, the median wait time in Airdrie went from around seven minutes to eight minutes and 47 seconds, and the response time for 90 per cent of calls went from 12.5 to 17.5  minutes.

Ceci noted that Airdrie MLAs Angela Pitt and Peter Guthrie have not spoken about EMS service in their communities, but are both campaigning for UCP leadership candidates.

Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie was not available to respond to the Cochrane Eagle's request for comment on Friday. His office said he was away.