Retired emergency responders living in the Waiparous area say ambulance response times to the region are putting lives at risk.
Retired emergency responders living in the Waiparous area say ambulance response times to the region are putting lives at risk.
Melody Long, a Waiparous Village resident and former EMT in the Mayerthorpe area, and her husband, Lee, a former deputy fire chief and EMR, are no strangers to the long wait times faced by the residents of rural communities. The couple contacted the Eagle after Feb. 2's story (Calgary EMS demand slows rural response, paramedics).
Waiparous is a 20-minute drive from Cochrane, but Melody said, in her experience, emergency wait times are more than double that. For that reason, some in the village who are aware of the Longs' medical training, have reached out to the couple during medical emergencies.
“I tell people in the village if they're hurt, don't wait … get in the car and start driving, ” she said, emphasizing that it is unacceptable for Calgary to drain rural resources.
Melody shared her own horror story. When her colon suddenly failed in January 2016, her husband drive her to Cochrane Urgent Care rather than chancing the additional driving time to Foothills Hospital in northwest Calgary.
According to the former EMT, she had to sit in Cochrane and wait an additional 65 minutes for an ambulance that was dispatched from Airdrie to pick her up and take her to hospital.
“The extra hour I had to sit in Cochrane waiting for an ambulance could have been the difference between life and death, ” she said, reiterating what other emergency personnel stated: that ambulance resources are being pulled out of Cochrane far more than the “less than two per cent ” as suggested by Alberta Health Services.
“Why are we being put in jeopardy because the City of Calgary deems it's more important for our ambulances to be brought in there than out here where they belong? ”
Although Nick Thain, executive director of south sector of EMS operations for AHS, said two ambulances are always staffed in Cochrane “24 hours/day, seven days/week ” - there are practitioners, such as Melody and the two anonymous senior medics previously interviewed by the Eagle, who say this is not true.
Their experiences are at the forefront for system critic and outspoken advocate, George Porter.
This January was the first year Porter chose not to renew his licence with the Alberta College of Paramedics, but he adamantly confirmed that “just because I'm no longer registered doesn't mean I'm going away. ”
The southern Alberta practitioner of 42 years has been lobbying the government and reaching out to media for some time to criticize a system he says is inefficient and is costing lives.
“It's going to take a high-profile fatality or a dead baby for them to change - and I hate to say that, ” said Porter, who has worked in nearly every capacity of the industry and has practised across the province. He is emphatic when he says this is “not a Calgary problem … it's an Alberta problem. ”
Porter is angry and motivated by years of firsthand experience in a system he says is plagued with system abuse, too few medics or ambulances on the roads, and paramedics clogging hospital hallways for hours at a time due to inefficient hospital systems.
His solution includes putting the emphasis back on medics as pre-hospital care professionals; increasing public education to ensure people are calling ambulances for the right reasons; to better screen and prepare candidates for a job that he says “will eat you up and is not for everyone; ” and to make sure there are not only enough ambulances on the roads, but enough staff manning them.
Porter said he empathizes with the AHS employees who fear for job security by publicly speaking out against the system, but he is hopeful more will come forward to help motivate change.
The senior medic, who currently lives near Fort Macleod, said the problem stems from an inflated bureaucracy.
“These organizations get to a point where everybody gets complacent and everybody is afraid to make a decision, ” he said.
Porter said during his most recent posting in Nanton, Alta., he regularly saw ambulance resources being pulled out of that community and shuffled into other communities, including Calgary.
According to Thain, there was a six to eight week period this winter that resulted in a spike in ambulances dispatched “across the entire Calgary zone. ”
“In Cochrane, the average response time sits well under 10 minutes, ” said Thain, which is within AHS' acceptable parameters.
