City staff are starting to get frustrated with how long it is taking to negotiate a new ambulance contract with Alberta Health Services (AHS).
The latest six-month extension of the 2009 agreement between St. Albert and AHS is half over and the two sides are still trying to arrange another meeting since holding one meeting in the last six weeks.
This newest extension isn’t even supposed to exist – council approved it last December after both one-year extensions allowed under the 2009 contract came and went with no progress.
“The frustration is in how long it’s taking,” said Chris Jardine, St. Albert’s general manager of community and protective services. “So far the discussions have been decent but it just seems to take forever. I’ll cut them some slack because they are (negotiating) across the province, but that doesn’t make it any easier on us.”
St. Albert is one of seven municipalities that contracted with AHS in 2009 to provide ambulance service. The city has two full-time ambulances and one ambulance that covers the city for 12 hours each day.
The city is pushing for a longer-term contract, in the area of five years with two two-year extensions. The sticking point for St. Albert, it appears, is compensation. Both Jardine and fire chief Ray Richards say the 2009 agreement did not adequately estimate some costs, such as wages or even ambulance mileage.
“We never anticipated having the kilometres to travel that we did after 2009, so we’re about three times above the kilometres we used to drive,” said Richards. “Those kinds of things increase the costs of the operation so we’re trying to recapture those dollars.”
The city is also waiting for AHS to acknowledge a $300,000 change order it filed several months ago for some of those costs.
A delay was expected when, in early 2012, the province asked the Health Quality Council to investigate ambulance service in Alberta. The final report, however, was delayed twice before it was finally released early this year.
But even with that out of the way, it has been slow going, Jardine said.
“We’re pushing them but it’s like pushing the Taj Mahal or trying to push the Rockies more into B.C.,” Jardine said.
Service levels are still a concern, but while response times have slid under the province’s leadership, they appear to have stabilized, Richards and Jardine agreed. St. Albert’s ambulances still average 15 minutes per call, far above the nine minutes that was St. Albert’s standard, but both say that is unlikely to improve.
“I think it’s been clear the service level from when we were running it has slipped, but it’s stable at that slipped point so none of the contract provisions or anything we have will result in normal slippage,” Jardine said.
The city also wants a third ambulance, but Richards said that’s a separate negotiation that will take place after the contract is in place.
“The first step is to get a contract. The second step is to work with AHS to see what resources they have in the region,” Richards said. “Once they know the price, there might be an opportunity.”
