Image from the ZOOM meeting with the four mayors

By Connor Gunn

Mayors want immediate investigation into EMS dispatch outage

Feb 1, 2021 | 1:56 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB– After a long technical outage for EMS dispatch services on January 26, 2021, Mayors across the province are calling for an inquiry into what went wrong.

EMS dispatch services across Alberta went black for over an hour on January 26 and did not notify local officials, including the Mayors of Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Calgary.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi told media their local EMS had to notify Alberta Health Services (AHS) of the outage that made delays to emergency responses across the region.

Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman, says “fix this now,” noting the consolidation of dispatch services has only caused delays.

The Mayors of Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge, and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo are now calling for an investigation and a pause on dispatch consolidation until these significant public safety issues can be resolved.

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“There has been no accountability at the provincial level,” Spearman adds, saying Lethbridge has been affected greatly.

Nenshi says his colleagues and other Mayors have already made strides to notify the province and make it known there’s a problem and now “citizens need to say this is unacceptable.”

In the letter to the province and Premier Jason Kenney, it says emergency dispatchers have contacted AHS, and still have not received an explanation for the outage after nearly a week has gone by.

The quartet of mayors are singing their complaints by also calling for a third-party review into if the consolidation of the service, which they don`t see as being worth it, as they’ve noted it has made it harder for emergency services to do their job.

Alberta Chief Paramedic and Senior Provincial Director Darren Sandbeck, says these claims from the mayors are false and that the outage was for only 42 minutes rather than the 72 minutes the mayors were claiming.

Sandbeck added that these outages happen and it is not because of the consolidation, he says it would have happened if dispatch services were local also.

In the letter, it estimates that emergency services staff have had to directly intervene in approximately 20 per cent of the medical calls to prevent AHS-caused delays or negative patient and responder outcomes.

Previous story: Mayors plea to Kenney: take action on 911 EMS dispatch consolidation

The letter will now be sent to provincial officials. There are no other details at this time.