One summer night two weeks ago, while on a relaxing drive about town, I tracked down two amiable paramedics. They indicated to me that they were not overworked, not overstressed, and emergency medical services had improved since 2011. Why did I even care, you are thinking?
Last fall, I recognized that inefficient ambulance services were rampant in Alberta. Clearly, this meant more grave circumstances than feeling frustration waiting two hours in a chilly clinic, or suffering stress-induced headaches seeking a general practitioner. I accumulated research, perhaps due to my father, a senior who had fallen repeatedly in his Erin Ridge home. Luckily, in his case the paramedics arrived quickly. But I knew by winter that the status quo of Alberta’s ambulance system had grown to code red level, whereby no ambulances are then available at a given time.
This situation is not acceptable. Patients have waited 50 minutes for an ambulance, which may travel 150 blocks from an outlying area. An Eckville family experienced a fatality on March 21, waiting 30 minutes when six-month-old baby Peyton was found unresponsive in her crib. The dispatched ambulance travelled 40 kilometres, from another municipality. An asthma patient suffered cardiac arrest, waiting more than 20 minutes for an ambulance.
Edmonton alone falls far short of meeting the national benchmark of responding to a critical call within nine minutes, 90 per cent of the time. Moreover, a current Health Sciences Association of Alberta report indicates that 72 per cent of ambulance respondents have not met their response time targets. From July 2011 to Jan. 2012, Edmonton had red alerts daily, even seven or eight alerts before noon. A heart attack, stroke or accident victim cannot wait five extra minutes.
Ambulances have been sent from St. Albert, Spruce Grove, Sherwood Park, Leduc and Stony Plain to serve Edmonton. I must emphasize that St. Albert has only 2.5 ambulances now – two full-time 24/7 units and a third that’s assigned to provide coverage for 12 hours a day. Fire crews responded to 982 medical calls in 2011. Are 2.5 ambulances, for a city of 61,000 people, reasonable? No.
The code-red problems are due to urban sprawl, a growing population, staff attrition and difficulties related to the 2009 takeover of the ambulance system by Alberta Health Services (AHS). A borderless system evolved and ambulance calls were centrally dispatched. Transparent communication failed between EMS staff and AHS. AHS must now facilitate a more efficient data collection system with predictive software, from ambulance communities regarding their measures of necessity. Dispatching must be more consolidated, and multilateral communication improved upon. More ambulances and stations are needed. Three stations closed in Edmonton due to construction. Lastly, AHS data reveals that Edmonton ambulances were held up 2.5 hours handing patients over to emergency rooms, from Sept. 2011 to Jan. 2012. This is the status quo?
AHS has a five-year plan for change. I assume the policy rationale is to save lives, and improve working conditions for all EMS personnel in the province. Let’s hope that the policy succeeds so that, within five years, if Albertans have to call for ambulances, they will arrive within 10 minutes, as was the case with my father.
If Alberta becomes a safer place to live, with outstanding EMS, we will be better for that. Mayor Nolan Crouse told me that his goal for EMS is “to restore St. Albert’s ambulance services to the acceptable level that we once knew,” corroborating that “EMS in St. Albert is not adequate” and “our political leaders must stand up strongly for this issue.”
Mass media has recently put the brakes on reporting code red situations, and stressed-out paramedics in Alberta. While this may reveal things are better, a lack of media focus is not a good thing. Alberta’s EMS has been an unacceptable segment of health care for too long, and we cannot be complacent. Let’s attempt, as a community, to monitor AHS’ five-year plan, and keep advocating publicly for improved EMS, even to Health and Wellness Minister Fred Horne. No more EMS status quo; no more code reds, thank you.
Barbara Jane Sowak believes all serious health-care system issues require consistent media attention, and monitoring at the community level.
