By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

formerly AUMA

Alberta Municipalities supports Red Deer’s call for third-party review of dispatch consolidation

Nov 18, 2021 | 5:15 PM

The newly re-branded Alberta Municipalities, or AM (formerly Alberta Urban Municipalities Association — AUMA) is lending its support to the call from four major cities for an independent third-party review into AHS’ decision to consolidate ambulance dispatch.

A resolution from Red Deer on Thursday at AM’s annual convention called for such a review into a matter which has baffled officials in this city, as well as Lethbridge, Calgary and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo for years now.

The City’s resolution also lists advocacy by AM to the Alberta Government to investigate what is said to be an increase in response times and technical outages that have occurred since January 12, 2021.

“It is no secret that municipalities are frustrated regarding the lack of consultation and response on this matter,” says Red Deer Mayor Ken Johnston. “Red Deer, Lethbridge, Calgary and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo have been at the forefront in attempting to convince the Government of Alberta to reverse the AHS decision to fully centralize ambulance emergency dispatch services, and now with the support of AUMA, we hope that the Government of Alberta finally listens to our concerns for the safety and wellbeing of all Albertans.”

Consolidation occurred on Jan. 12 of this year, with the four noted centres integrated into Alberta Health Services’ provincial dispatch system.

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About two weeks later, an outage at the AHS South Communication Centre that is said to have lasted 72 minutes, allegedly forced AHS to dispatch ambulances manually. Meantime, there was little to no access to Computer-Aided Dispatch, mobile data terminals and GPS tracking of ambulances.

READ MORE: Mayors want immediate investigation into EMS dispatch outage

AUMA – again, now AM — issued a statement on this in August 2020 as the four municipalities urged Premier Jason Kenney and then Health Minister Tyler Shandro to reverse course.

“We thank the AUMA membership for their support on this vital step towards realizing the impact of consolidation on response times,” said Mayor Johnston. “A third-party review is the next best step in validating and confirming that the AHS decision to consolidate ambulance dispatch was a mistake and is costing Albertans their lives.”

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