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(rdnewsNOW file photo)
bottlenecking a problem

Red Deer seeks fix for ambulance service strain

Feb 21, 2020 | 9:38 AM

Red Deer not only needs expanded hospital infrastructure, our city is also short on ambulances.

In a bid to ease the pressure on Red Deer’s tapped out ambulance fleet, city officials are urging the province for the establishment of a non-ambulance service to handle non-emergency inter-facility patient transfers.

The idea is included in The City of Red Deer’s list of provincial advocacy items. The cities of Leduc and Lethbridge have also identified the issue.

City council heard at their meeting on Tuesday that Red Deer currently has five full-time ambulances, which is down from the nine our city had before the David Thompson Health Region was abolished and AHS took over provincial ambulance services in 2008.

A “code red” occurs when all of Red Deer’s ambulances are out on calls and other ambulances from nearby communities are put on standby to respond to emergencies.

Red Deer Emergency Services Fire Chief/Manager Ken McMullen a code red occurs about once a month.

Mayor Tara Veer said Tuesday that she and other councillors have spoken to both the health minister and associate minister of red tape reduction with their idea, but so far have not heard back.

A major difficulty of having a small ambulance fleet, McMullen explained, is that bottlenecking occurs at the Red Deer Regional Hospital emergency department. The bottlenecking occurs because paramedics must wait with patients, sometimes for several hours, until they are assigned to a bed.

Ken McMullen, RDES Fire Chief/Manager (rdnewsNOW file photo)

It’s not uncommon, McMullen noted, for a paramedic already waiting with a patient to take on one or more additional patients in order to allow an ambulance to head back out on call. A decision to do is discretionary and made based on the specific needs of the patient, he added.

McMullen said having non-emergency facility transfers done using non-ambulance vehicles would help ease the situation.

Meantime, as part of the review by Alberta Health Services they are recommending consolidating ambulance dispatch services.

“We are in the process of gathering more information with a report to council expected in the second quarter of this year as we will need to elevate our advocacy to retain ambulance dispatch,” city staff told council in a briefing report.