Emergency response is complicated, and it isn’t always clear whether the patient comes first.
In the ongoing debate between citizen action groups and the provincial agency charged with running health care, the rancour has only gotten more intense since the Alberta government took over ambulance services from municipalities in 2009.
Locally, the Cochrane EMS Citizens Action Group (CAG) works tirelessly as an agent of reform. Mayor Jeff Genung says this group should be commended for their efforts. And so they should.
A representative of Alberta Health Services (AHS) EMS, at a presentation to Cochrane cown council on Feb. 13, outlined problems and possible solutions to EMS issues, like hiring more nurses for emergency rooms (ERs) in Calgary, ordering more ambulances, and addressing staffing shortages.
Staffing challenges in hospitals contribute to long wait times in emergency rooms. Continuing supply chain issues mean the wait time to take delivery on new ambulances is two years. And COVID-19 contributed to longer wait times in ERs from 2020 to 2022.
All three of those challenges plague health authorities across the country, and all three, like ripples in a pond, negatively affect ambulance wait times in Cochrane.
At the recent presentation, AHS representatives extended an olive branch to the CAG, saying they wanted to work more closely and in cooperation with local advocacy groups. A meeting was scheduled for the following week.
But before that meeting could take place, at their news conference Feb. 17, members of the CAG seemed in no mood for cooperation. Instead of keeping their powder dry for a few days and saving their attack until after the meeting if they were still so inclined, they came out swinging. They said AHS was purposely misleading and they were critical of a number of aspects of the presentation.
This EMS fight has been going on for a long time. When the province took over responsibility, their oft-quoted mantra was that ‘EMS is health care, and so belongs in the health care system.’
No one argues that ambulance service is health care.
It all goes back to when ambulances were horse-drawn carriages. They advanced to motorized vehicles, and in some villages, the ambulance driver and the undertaker were the same person, in the same vehicle. Scary.
Cochranites fear they may not have an ambulance available in a timely fashion. They have a right to be scared, and they don’t care which agency is in charge of assuaging that fear.
For their sake – for patients’ sake – let’s hope the CAG can ramp down their antagonism for a few days prior to and during their meeting, and come back with some mutually agreed upon recommendations for a cure.
Before, as the CAG has so often warned, somebody dies.
