Alberta mayors plea to save local 911 EMS dispatch as consolidation starts Jan. 12

Prior to this happening, the mayors held another in a series of press conferences on Monday aimed at persuading the government to cancel this change and to encourage the public to speak out.

Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer stated that “this issue is not about partisanship, it is not about politics, or as some have speculated, it’s not even about the money, it is not even about preserving the status quo… this issue is about life and death.”

A report for AHS by Ernst and Young claims that the province could see as much as $6-million in savings through consolidation.

For Lethbridge, however, Mayor Chris Spearman explained that they already save a lot of money by integrating dispatch services for police, fire, and EMS and being able to coordinate responses for all three at the same time in the same place.

Firefighters in the city are also dually-trained as paramedics and fire trucks come with basic life-saving medical supplies. With all three services working together, he says they are able to send out a firefighter to a medical call first if there are no nearby ambulances.

“In emergency situations where more than one service is required, the information can be quickly and easily shared, providing the fastest-possible response by all services to address the situation. Siloing EMS dispatch and separating it from the other emergency services will result in the fragmentation of services and poor patient outcomes.”

By removing EMS from that equation, Spearman believes the city would actually end up spending more through a loss of efficiency.

Lethbridge, Red Deer, and Wood Buffalo have offered to pay $1.2-million each to keep dispatch services local.

“Paying $1.2-million will prevent our city from having to spend $5-million in additional costs related to mitigating risk and to ensure we maintain the same service level to our community after EMS dispatch is removed,” says Spearman.

For the R.M. of Wood Buffalo, consolidation could have an even bigger impact.

Their local emergency service covers an extensively-large area in northeastern Alberta, and aside from Fort McMurray, includes many small communities.

Mayor Don Scott says he is concerned that a 911 dispatcher based out of Calgary would not know many of the local landmarks that residents might use to describe their location. This could theoretically lead to longer response times.

“Our region is larger than the province of Nova Scotia and the next-closest ambulance is three-and-a-half hours away.”

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi says he has been fighting back against the plan for consolidation against multiple different governments, health ministers, and AHS boards.

He has asked the current administration for data on the current system and how things might change under the new one.

“What we have received, in fact, has shown that service massively degraded in the areas around Calgary by many multiples in terms of increasing response time, but we haven’t heard anything beyond that.”

“We’ve also been informed that AHS will not transfer callers to the Calgary Police Service if police is required. Instead, they will inform Calgary 911 if they deem it appropriate – no protocols, no practices. This is not good enough.”

The mayors all called out an apparent lack of cooperation on the provincial government’s part, claiming that the province has failed to listen to their concerns and, oftentimes, not even providing a response.

The local leaders of government also issued a joint statement late last week on the issue that includes additional information and comments. You can read that here.

by David Opinko

Alberta mayors plea to save local 911 EMS dispatch as consolidation starts Jan. 12

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