Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer

By Sheldon Spackman

Fighting Mad

Veer extremely frustrated with plan to consolidate 911 dispatch

Aug 5, 2020 | 6:18 PM

Red Deer’s mayor is angry and frustrated over plans to consolidate 911 dispatch services in the province.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) officials say the goal of the move is to further improve patient care and save over $6 million. AHS says last year’s Ernst and Young (EY) AHS review recommends transitioning the four municipally-run dispatch sites into one of three existing provincially-run EMS dispatch Centres located in Calgary, Edmonton, and Peace River.

Tara Veer, however, was joined by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, Lethbridge mayor Chris Spearman, and Karoline Power, Executive Assistant to the Regional Fire Chief at Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo on Wednesday to outline their strong concerns and disbelief to the announcement.

They noted that their respective communities have successfully operated contracted satellite dispatch sites, separate from the AHS EMS provincial system, since 2009.

Veer says she hopes to meet with Health Minister Tyler Shandro later this month to voice her strong opposition to the move, noting the change could mean the loss of four or five dispatch centre jobs in Red Deer.

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“I’m hard-pressed to understand why we are forced to contend with this issue once again. We remain steadfast in opposition,” she vented. “A series of health ministers have overturned it because it simply does not make sense on the ground in terms of patient outcomes. I cannot imagine what other reason it could potentially be about.”

Veer disagrees with the notion that consolidation will lead to more timely dispatch services.

“AHS’s own target dispatch time is 90 seconds. AHS’s Edmonton Communication Centre was 92 seconds this past quarter – below the standard that AHS themselves have set, and in the last 12 months averaged 85 seconds. Red Deer consistently performs 18-21 seconds faster than the AHS Emergency Communications Centre in Edmonton. Those are critical life and death seconds.”

“We keep getting these flimsy reports and flimsy recommendations that everything should be consolidated to one centre in Edmonton where people are not familiar with the geographical areas, not familiar with the communities, and will not provide data on the effectiveness of their services and will not share that and will not be accountable,” said Lethbridge mayor Chris Spearman. “They don’t deserve to run a consolidated service, and while we’re running an effective one, that should be respected.”

Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi agrees that AHS is relying on a “very flimsy” report from 2013 which has methodologically been proven as incorrect.

“They haven’t done any new research since then, Ernst and Young certainly didn’t do any research on this either, and I do not know why AHS will not get off of it,” pondered Nenshi. “I’m not sure of the last time anyone pointed to Alberta Health Services as an example of exceptional management. There’s absolutely no way they can manage this better than the cities do.”

Darren Sandbeck, chief paramedic and senior provincial director with Alberta Health Services EMS, insists response times will not be affected by the transition.

“Callers will know no difference in what happens today, versus what will happen after the transition,” he said Wednesday. “We use a very robust mapping system, not only in our dispatch centres, but also in our ambulances. This includes routing information that the paramedics and the ambulance have available to them, to essentially guide them directly to the call.”

Veer claimed there was a lack of consultation with the affected communities prior to the decision being announced – a claim Sandbeck refutes.

“We’ve had good, strong relationships with these contracted municipalities for the last decade, we meet with them regularly, we have regular discussions with them, that has been ongoing,” he explained. “They’ve additionally been involved in consultation both in 2013 through the health quality council of Alberta review, and then as we know, the EY review recently also made the recommendation to government that dispatch consolidation be completed and that recommendation was accepted by government in January. So I would say, that the municipalities have been consulted with over the last decade about our desire to move to the consolidated model.”

“It is not in the interest of patient outcomes in life and death emergency situations,” Veer concluded. “We have an efficient system in terms of integrated dispatch that matters to people in 911. When someone calls 911, they need a swift response and that is our ultimate objective.”

The union representing Alberta firefighters is also opposed to the consolidation.