A rare full gallery of interested onlookers listened closely to responses from the people running emergency services for the province at the RancheHouse on Feb. 13, as members of Cochrane town council fired questions at them for over an hour.
Tony Pasich, associate executive director of Alberta Health Services Emergency Medical Services (AHS EMS), was in the hot seat, and while his detailed responses were laden with charts and graphs, in the end, the dearth of tangible proposals to improve EMS prompted mayor Jeff Genung to sum up the meeting with an emotional appeal.
All of the councillors had detailed questions centring around number of vehicles, staffing issues, response times – all the usual topics that come up whenever emergency services in Cochrane are debated.
Most – if not all – of those queries met with lengthy answers from Pasich, which often circled around the lines of ‘We need to complete our research, we’ll get back to you.’
In the end, Genung said councillors “had done a good job grilling you” and that he had no further questions for Pasich.
Instead, the mayor offered a comment summarizing the gripes he’s heard from residents about Cochrane’s increasing ambulance response times over the years, as a result of the vehicles often being diverted to Calgary, leaving the town in a ‘Code Red’ situation, when no local ambulances are available.
“The bottom line, and you’ve heard it from all my colleagues tonight and you’d hear it from everyone in the community, really, [is that] we’re just scared,” Genung said.
“We’re going to call 911 and there’s a risk of not having an ambulance come in a reasonable response time. T.hat’s really what we’re up to – a lack of trust in that system, and it’s going to take a long time to rebuild.”
He added that council was taking everything AHS claimed with a grain of salt, and will be watching for results.
Genung said he was encouraged to hear from Pasich that soon – hopefully – Calgary EMS might be in a position to support Cochrane, if AHS' desired reforms work.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard that, and that really resonates with me,” Genung said.
The ongoing complaint (that Cochrane ambulances are being diverted to Calgary too often), may be addressed in a significant way, Pasich said.
“We’re looking to flip that script,” he said, adding that if all goes according to plan, ambulances from Calgary may soon be more available to lend a hand in Cochrane when the need arises.
The provincial health authority, AHS, took over EMS from municipalities in 2009.
Many Cochrane residents, including the EMS Citizens Action Group (CAG) are tired of waiting for action. Brian Winter of the CAG, who was in the gallery on Feb. 13, said they would be sitting down to discuss what they heard and giving “a strong rebuke” at a news conference this Friday.
Pasich said he is planning on meeting with the CAG’s members soon.
He also outlined some improvements in the works in Calgary, aimed at reducing wait times for EMS crews looking to hand over patients.
Pasich said all of the Calgary facilities that accept EMS patients are in the process of recruiting more triage and charge nurses – something he pointed to as a significant development, as it should mean faster turn-arounds for ambulances. Often, he said, when things get busy, nurses are called away to other duties, which can lengthen ambulance wait times.
Other relevant Calgary challenges he outlined included a two-year wait time for new ambulance orders (due to supply chain problems), and staffing pressures in Calgary EMS and AHS.
Pasich put a chart up showing recent trends in EMS response times in Cochrane. The targets are 10 minutes for the median response times, and 15 minutes for the 90th percentile.
Going back to 2016 and up to the present, the median has been eight minutes, 58 seconds – under the target.
But the 90th percentile number – 24 minutes and 48 seconds – is much worse than the target.
The last time that second number was within the target range in Cochrane was 2019, when it was at 14 minutes and 42 seconds.
Pasich said all the numbers were similar to other like-sized towns in Alberta. He noted that 2020 and 2021 were outliers, as COVID-induced pressures on health-care systems in Calgary translated into increased pressures on EMS in satellite communities like Cochrane.
Coun. Morgan Nagel, not satisfied with Pasich’s response to one of his questions, asked him to try again.
“Is there a solution coming?” Nagel asked.
Pasich said that if the changes coming to Calgary reduce time spent by ambulances waiting to hand over patients, along with a reduction in staffing pressures, it will indeed translate to reduced response times in Cochrane.
“I’m confident it’s going to dramatically improve,” Pasich said.
CAG holds news conference
At their news conference Feb. 17, Cochrane CAG outlined their criticism of AHS's Feb. 13 presentation, arguing it was “a deliberately confusing presentation.”
“We found much of the presentation misleading,” said CAG chair Brian Winter.
Winter went on to dispute the numbers presented by Pasich, including the response time data, and the number cited for automated external defibrillators (AEDs).
Pasich said there were seven AEDs in Cochrane. Winter said the real number is 16.
Besides a few statistical disagreements, Winter questioned Pasich’s characterization of other issues, such as staffing. Pasich said AHS was striving to move part-time EMS personnel into full-time.
“Our information is that many full-time staff are dropping to part-time because they’re exhausted and frustrated,” Winter said.
At the AHS presentation, Pasich said they wanted to make more of an effort to work together with communities. To that end, there was a meeting scheduled for Feb. 21 (after press time) in Okotoks with area CAGs, including Cochrane CAG, and AHS EMS to discuss how to move forward.
“How do you partner with a person or organization that has proven time and again that they can’t be trusted?” Winter said, referring to the offer from AHS to work cooperatively.
Asked about the likelihood of forming a good relationship with AHS coming out of that meeting, based on the criticism launched by the CAG, Winter said he’s still optimistic.
“Hopefully at that time we can share our concerns, they can share how they can help us, and maybe at that point we can start developing a relationship,” he said.
The CAG thanked Highwood MLA R.J. Sigurdson, the Parliamentary Secretary for EMS Reform for his work on the EMS file.
