Ambulance response times in Alberta have grown progressively worse, missing Alberta Health Services targets for life-threatening calls, says Alberta’s opposition party.
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said on Wednesday that the slowest 10 per cent of ambulance response times in the province went from a 12-minute wait to a delay of 17-minutes or more, according to data from AHS’s Quarterly Emergency Medical Services Dashboard.
Even median response times in urban areas have begun to miss the AHS targets in the first three months of 2022, added Notley.
“These numbers are clear signs of an ambulance and hospital system that is under incredible strain.”
Notley pointed out that 14 local ambulances were backed up waiting to drop off patients at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre last month. She noted this means these ambulances were not available to respond quickly to calls in the community.
Some ambulances in Edmonton and Calgary are now waiting as long as 2 hours and 45 minutes to hand over their patients to hospital emergency room staff, when the AHS target is an hour-and-a-half or less, she added.
“These are the longest waits since AHS started publishing data,” said Notley.
The NDP leader found even the time it takes to dispatch ambulances after 911 calls has worsened in Alberta — highlighting a concern that’s been raised by Red Deer’s mayor and fire chief, who have lobbied for a return to local ambulance dispatching, instead of the new centralized AHS system.
Although 90 per cent of calls meet the AHS target of dispatching an ambulance within one-and-a-half minutes, the time for the remaining 10 per cent of calls has doubled to more than two minutes and 45 seconds, said Notley.
Steve Buick, press secretary for Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping, said the pandemic has driven up the demand for emergency care in all provinces. “We’re seeing very high numbers of patients in Emergency and EMS,” he said, with response times above AHS’s targets since last summer when call volumes surged.
“We’re working to bring response times back within target and make sure ambulances are available when people need them.”
Alberta Health has added $64 million to Alberta Health Services’ budget for 2022-23 to put more ambulances and paramedics on the road across the province, Buick added. ”That includes an additional 12-hour shift per day in Red Deer in each of the next two fiscal years.”
During the COVID-19 crisis, AHS has added staff and grown its workforce, including adding 230 paramedics and over 1,000 registered nurses, said Buick.
Alberta Health recognizes that busy hospitals mean the system needs more capacity “and we’re funding it… including $190 million to start work on the $1.8 billion redevelopment of the Red Deer Hospital, the largest hospital expansion project ever in the province,” said Buick.
Red Deer hospital advocates were glad about this funding announcement, but have questioned the eight-year time frame for the project, saying relief is needed now.
On Wednesday, Mike Parker, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, said the province should expand hours of employment for casual ambulance workers, and reopen closed supervised consumption sites to prevent opioid overdoses and relieve some of the stress on paramedics.
“We need more health care professionals ready to do the work. And we need to take care of the ones we have so that they are not getting physically and mentally ill, or ending their careers early.”
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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