The number of ambulances on Red Deer city streets will be reduced for the final time on Sunday as part of changes for Alberta Health Services.
During June and July, Red Deer Emergency Services moved from providing nine ambulances down to seven. As of Sunday, there will be five as is required under the City of Red Deer’s contract with Alberta Health Services. In Red Deer, ambulances are staffed by fire-medics, who are trained as both firefighters and registered paramedics.
After Red Deer’s five ambulances are used, an AHS ambulance from an outlying community will respond.
“We have phased in this transition to minimized the impact to our community and to give the province the opportunity to transition and monitor the service delivery under the contract,” said Emergency Services manager Jack MacDonald in a news release on Wednesday.
The city works with partners in advance of the sixth call, so the ambulance from outside town is in Red Deer already.
After the final transition phase on Sunday, Emergency Services plans to continue the practice of co-responding with a fire engine to the more serious incidents in the city. These advance life support engines have the same emergency personnel found in Red Deer’s ambulances.
Development Services director Paul Goranson believes the transition has been running smoothly.
He understands there’s only been two or three instances where an ambulance from an outside community was called in to respond.
“We’ve had a number of ambulances on inter-facility transfers or out on calls, so these (outlying) ambulances have been put on standby,” Goranson said on Wednesday.
A few members of the public have wondered why a different ambulance has come to pick them up but otherwise the issues haven’t been too substantive, he added.
Alberta Health Services took over responsibility of all ambulance services in April 2009, leaving the city under contract with the province rather than independently providing ambulance services in and around Red Deer. For more than a year, the city was providing additional ambulances and crews outside of the contract without provincial funding.
“We will continue to work closely with Red Deer Emergency Services to ensure appropriate ambulance resources are available at all times,” said Sue Conroy, senior vice-president for EMS, Alberta Health Services.
Goranson said the transition is also giving Alberta Health Services the data on how many ambulances are warranted.
According to 2009 data, five ambulances covered about 97 per cent of all calls, with the remaining three per cent coming from the remaining Red Deer ambulances. That small percentage will now be covered by other community ambulances.
ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com