A recent incident at a high school Remembrance Day ceremony shook an Okotoks EMT, who said the AHS model for ambulance service has been a problem for years.
Krisztina Giffen said her son told her last week that during his school’s Remembrance Day ceremony one of the older speakers fainted and while the fire department was there quickly, the ambulance took a long time to arrive.
She learned it took 37 minutes for the ambulance to arrive to the call at the school because it was coming from Claresholm while the High River ambulance was responding to a call in Calgary.
“It’s so sad that stuff like that is happening,” she said. “This gentleman could have been having a stroke, he could have been having a heart attack. This should not be happening in Canada, in Alberta. Our EMS service used to be regarded highly. It is not that way anymore.”
Luckily the patient was fine, she said, but that is not always the case.
“They have had some pretty sick people, so transport has been delayed because they (firefighters) are forbidden to transport,” Giffen said. “So there has been adverse outcomes for certain people because the ambulance has taken too long.”
She said she has witnessed the increase of rural ambulances being called into Calgary and the resulting lengthy response times that have resulted.
“The model they are using now is working for Calgary but then the rural communities are left completely empty,” Giffen said.
Okotoks has two emergency ambulances between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. and only one at night, she explained. When an Okotoks ambulance responds to a call in Calgary, the ambulance from Black Diamond or High River comes into town to fill the spot.
“Then there is a domino effect,” she said. “There is no truck in Black Diamond and then there’s a huge hole down west or Nanton will cover High River.”
The delays mean sometimes the ground ambulance is the last to arrive at a scene, said Giffen.
“STARS air ambulance will actually beat a ground ambulance to a scene, which doesn’t happen ever, but it is happening now,” she said.
Ambulances that serve areas south of Calgary are regularly dispatched into the city, she said.
“The last two to three years we’ve noticed when Calgary is short on trucks, they start pulling in all the rural trucks… we all just get sucked in,” she said. “Over the last two years, we’ve noticed a big difference, but it’s gotten really bad.”
While out on Calgary calls, she can see when there are serious calls coming in for the Foothills, but there is nothing they can do.
“You can see a flag pops up on the map we can hear the dispatch and you know the ambulance is coming from a half-hour away,” she said. “Patient care is suffering.”
People can no longer rely on a timely response from the ambulance, she said.
“I’ve told my husband if anything happens, drive to the hospital,” Giffen said. “It’s funny because a lot of my friends and co-workers have given strict instructions to their spouses to drive to the hospital, don’t even bother calling an ambulance.”
Dispatch is unable to tell people when they are in for a long wait, causing further stress for EMTs, she said.
“So, we’ve begged them on the air before when certain calls come in and they sound high priority, we’ve asked them could you please tell them the ambulance is coming from Okotoks and the dispatch is not allowed to do that,” Giffen said.
"That is ridiculous and not in the best interest of patients. When it sounds serious and they could drive their loved one to the hospital and be there in five minutes versus waiting for us (ambulance) for 25 minutes, it is in the best interest of the patient sometimes to just be scooped up by their loved one and driven to the hospital.”
The number of ambulances on the road has not been in line with the increasing population in southern Alberta, said Giffen.
“With the growth the city (Calgary) has seen, I don’t think they have added sufficient, if any resources,” she said. “In Okotoks, the fact that we only have only one ambulance after 8 p.m. is ridiculous for 30,000-plus people. It’s crazy.”
