A longer-term contract for providing ambulance services will be highly anticipated in 2012, but the operation of dispatch services may remain uncertain for some time, says a City of Red Deer official.
Development Services director Paul Goranson outlined his department’s forecast on Wednesday during operational budget talks.
“The change to transfer ambulance governance to the province in April 2009 continues to create local challenges,” he said.
Red Deer has a contract with Alberta Health Services to provide ambulance services.
The message now is that the province is supportive of providing ambulance through contracts with municipalities that use the integrated fire-medic model. Red Deer Emergency Services’ model involves training firefighters as paramedics, who handle both fire and ambulance duties.
Alberta Health Services (AHS) had announced about a year ago it would extend the contracts of ambulance service providers willing to continue ambulance services through to March 31, 2012. The government plans to develop five-year contracts with potentially two two-year extensions beyond March 31, 2017.
Goranson said the five-year contract will provide some clarity and longer-term stability for staff.
“They’ve just come out with terms for a five-year contract and we’ve submitted a proposal for what that would look like and options for AHS to consider,” said Goranson.
Uncertainty remains around ambulance dispatch.
Red Deer Emergency Services operates its own dispatch system but at one time, it was supposed to be transferred to Calgary.
“The province had made a decision to consolidate dispatch and that was to happen quickly,” Goranson said. “We’re still providing dispatch and we don’t know how it’s going to last. It creates a lot of uncertain areas as far as communications to our staff, long term projections for needs and what kind of impacts it will have on us.”
Without a sense of direction from Alberta Health Services (AHS), it creates challenges in determining staffing and resource requirements, he said.
In other budget news:
l Revenue and Assessment Services plans several endeavors in 2012, including giving utility customers the chance to receive utility bills via electronic means. It is also looking at providing information, reports and other expertise as part of Riverlands redevelopment and overall development of the Greater Downtown Action Plan. The department will work with Planning division on developing a policy on brownfields, land that has been left vacant and needs environmental cleanup.
l Information Technology Services is looking for some extra dollars — $25,000 in software maintenance for workforce time and attendance, $21,600 towards building additional revenues for supporting the Red Net Network and $49,425 in increased print room operations. RedNet is the City of Red Deer’s infrastructure that provides network access for Red Deer’s public library, its two school boards as well as the Red Deer Regional Hospital, which is the referral center for the Alberta Health Services.