To hear Mike Klapey tell it, the solution to the Cochrane emergency services’ dangerous bottleneck in ambulance availability is simple – let private providers (like him) augment the supply of emergency transfer vehicles, under contract with Alberta Health Services (AHS).
Klapey held a news conference Tuesday at his company Medsource’s new location on Railway Street, which is spacious enough to house transfer vehicles that could be deployed to relieve pressure on Cochrane’s EMS fleet.
EMS has been a provincial responsibility since AHS took over the service from Alberta municipalities in 2009.
Since then, groups like Cochrane EMS Citizen Action Group (CAG) have been shouting from the rooftops that the situation is dire, and wait times are unacceptable.
One simple suggestion they have yet to see AHS take up is to provide transfer vehicles that would be available to take patients from Cochrane to Calgary. These would not be full-on ambulances but would need to meet certain medical standards required by AHS.
“At the Urgent Care Centre here in Cochrane, when they request a (patient) transfer to do something like an MRI in Calgary, what would happen now is they would go in the same queue as the 911 ambulances supporting the community,” he said.
He said the Cochrane ambulances and crews are already under heavy strain, so adding non-emergency transfers to the mix just “adds to the pile.”
“And because it’s non-emergency, it gets pushed down the queue, and at the Centre, if it’s getting towards the end of the day – because we don’t have a 24-hour centre – at some point the physicians have to start transferring patients out because they’re not ready to send them home,” he said.
The result was oftentimes those patients end up sitting waiting for a ride “for hours and hours.”
A year ago Klapey responded to an AHS request for submissions from suppliers like Medsource to learn more about the transfer options. He told The Eagle this week they were almost non-responsive to his submission. After waiting a year, he still has no substantive response from AHS.
And when he contacted some competitors who also had submitted proposals, he said they also had heard nothing from AHS.
A call from The Eagle to AHS for reaction received no immediate response.
If AHS were to hammer out the details and agree to having dedicated transfer vehicles under contract, Klapey said his company’s new facility could respond quickly.
“The transit vans we’ve spec’d out are around $150,000. We could put six to eight in here easily,” he said.
“So we could take that strain off the frontline health services right now . . . if the province would allow us.”
Klapey said private companies provided EMS services for years before AHS took over. Since then, service has declined, he said.
“They’re failing, time and time again, year after year.”
Brian Winter of the CAG attended the news conference. Allowing a private option to provide transfer services like Klapey is suggesting is actually one of the four pillars of the CAG’s ongoing lobbying effort.
They have been asking for this for years.
“So we’re here to promote the concept, and Mike’s company because mainly, he’s a Cochranite, he bought a building, he pays taxes, he employs staff, so we want to ensure that AHS, when they branch out to do third party transfers, that Mike’s company is included,” Winter said.
There is a particular configuration required for transfer vehicles, including room for stretchers and some basic medical equipment. They need less equipment than an ambulance, but more than a bare van.
Klapey said the type of vans they would use are the same make and models now commonly used by companies like Amazon: the Ford Transit, and Dodge Ram ProMaster being good examples. They are relatively compact for cargo vans and are high enough to allow people to stand up in the back.
Medsource is a private medical services company providing a range of disaster response services to large companies and government agencies in Alberta. In the event of a forest fire, for instance, they could be called upon to provide on-site relief.
The Cochrane-based company also provide a full suite of medical services, including health and safety services to gas plants when they undertake annual maintenance at processing plants. They have registered medics and paramedics on staff.
Klapey’s suggestions mark the second time since last month that a private health services company has come forward with an idea to help relieve pressure on primary health care in Cochrane.
Last month Karen Parker announced that the number of Cochranites waiting in line for a family doctor could be cut by nearly 60 per cent in one fell swoop when her new nurse practitioners clinic opens this spring.
Parker’s will be the first nurse practitioner clinic to open in Alberta under newly relaxed rules that came into effect when the provincial government announced they were going ahead with an idea that has been brewing for a few years.
They are awaiting detailed approval from Alberta Health.
Town of Cochrane Councillor Susan Flowers was also on hand at Klapey’s news conference.
“It’s nice to hear the public coming up with solutions. We need solutions and time is of the essence,” she said. “Things are moving too slowly and people need help.”
