Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer called the move to consolidate the city's EMS dispatch perhaps one of the single most impactful and egregious decisions that I have witnessed in my 16 years in local government,." (rdnewsNOW/Sheldon Spackman)

By Troy Gillard and Sheldon Spackman

"impactful and egregious"

Mayors call on premier to cancel EMS dispatch consolidation

Oct 20, 2020 | 4:37 PM

The mayors of four Alberta cities are now calling on Premier Jason Kenney to overturn his health minister’s decision to allow Alberta Health Services to go ahead with plans to consolidate their 911 EMS dispatch services.

Health Minister Tyler Shandro announced Friday afternoon in a letter to the mayors of Red Deer, Calgary, Lethbridge and Wood Buffalo that he would not be overturning AHS’ decision from August to consolidate their EMS dispatch services into three AHS-run communications centres in Calgary, Edmonton and Peace River.

AHS maintains that Albertans will notice no difference when they call 911 for emergency services and that ambulance response times will not change. AHS officials also said in a release Tuesday that medical first response through fire departments will “continue exactly as it does today.”

But mayors Tara Veer (Red Deer), Naheed Nenshi (Calgary), Chris Spearman (Lethbridge) and Don Scott (Wood Buffalo) strongly disagree and held a joint news conference Tuesday afternoon where they urged the premier to cancel the consolidation.

“Minister Shandro’s decision to override local concerns and not intervene is perhaps one of the single most impactful and egregious decisions that I have witnessed in my 16 years in local government,” Veer blasted. “There will be a degradation of EMS services as other Alberta communities have experienced under the consolidated Alberta Health Services model.”

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Veer urged the premier to follow through on his commitment to working with municipalities on ensuring effective delivery of local services.

“Keeping the current integrated municipal dispatch model, it reduces red tape, it saves money. But most importantly, and above every other reason, it saves lives by delivering emergency ambulance care faster than what AHS can provide alone,” she stressed.

An average day sees the dispatch centre in Red Deer handle between 220 to 300 calls. The centre serves an area that has 450,000 people living in it and handles dispatch for 72 different fire departments and 20 ambulances.

Red Deer Emergency Services officials say emergency calls handled locally are handled within 65 seconds – between 18 to 22 seconds faster than by another centre. Forty per cent of the time in 2019, according to City statistics, fire medics were the first to arrive at the scene of an emergency.

Veer said consolidating dispatch will add 200,000 additional calls per year to the three remaining centres resulting in slower service for Albertans, not just those in the four affected municipalities.

“Additional delays will occur as the AHS emergency communications centre dispatches slower than their own 90-second standard for emergency ambulance dispatch. AHS in their three centres are not even meeting their own standard.”

Veer said the decision to consolidate is one based on a recommendation from an outdated 11-year old plan.

“There is very good reason that four former health ministers, serving under different governments prior to minister Shandro, stopped this reckless and dangerous decision once they were presented with the local facts.”

Red Deer’s mayor feels Shandro’s letter from Friday selectively responded to the concerns presented to him by the mayors in a meeting last month.

“We have endeavored to engage with the province in good faith. Minister Shandro’s response has failed to address our very legitimate concerns in the safety interests of our citizens,” she said. “This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue of life and death.”

The mayors of Red Deer, Lethbridge, Wood Buffalo and Calgary held a joint media conference via Zoom on Tuesday.

“Our municipalities have extensive experience providing EMS dispatch that results in excellent patient outcomes. After just 16 months in office, Minister Shandro has decided to throw all of that away without any consultation with municipalities,” said Lethbridge Mayor Chris Spearman. “His inability to provide rationale or data prior to delivering his letter to us on Friday, confirms this is a short sighted and reckless decision.”

“The rationale to move forward with consolidation demonstrates a decision based on ideology, not intellect,” suggested Don Scott, Mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. “Our region is larger than the province of Nova Scotia and we consistently dispatch an ambulance faster than AHS — we have the data to prove it.”

In a brief statement emailed to rdnewsNOW, Christine Myatt, Press Secretary for Premier Jason Kenney, said, “60% of the province and most cities and towns – including Edmonton – already operate successfully under AHS dispatch. We will refer you to Minister’s lengthy explanatory letter to the mayors for more details.”

The four mayors are inviting all members of the UCP caucus to a meeting on Thursday to be briefed on the matter.

“In our view it is undemocratic for a decision to be made before elected colleagues are fully briefed on the impact on their constituents,” Veer suggested.