Ambulance takeover prompts concern

As the province works toward taking over responsibility of ambulance services from the Municipality of Jasper, director of Emergency Services Greg Van Tighem has concerns about whether the high quality of service here will remain.

The government announced in May it would work toward moving all responsibility and funding for ambulance services in the province to the Alberta health system by April 1, 2009, as it was decided that Emergency Medical Service (EMS) should be included as health care.

Before the change was announced, individual communities were responsible for EMS. In Jasper, the work has been contracted to Associated Ambulance, with Van Tighem directing the contract.

And Jasper is fortunate, Van Tighem said, as it has a high level of service not only because of the increased summer population, but also because there aren’t any nearby communities to help out. But soon the issue will be out of his hands. 

“The problem is as of April 1 I’m no longer the supervisor, so I no longer have control over that,” he said. “Obviously my commitment is to the community and because of my position I’m responsible for public safety, so my concern is that we maintain that high level of service.”

As part of the takeover, Alberta Health and Wellness plans to move from the current 30-35 dispatch centres in the province to nine centralized, regional dispatches. Centres keen to host a  regional dispatch were asked to submit proposals in November. 

“I have reservations about that for a variety of reasons,” Van Tighem said. “Parks Canada owns the radio system here and it’s a fairly intricate system because we’re dealing with a large area, lots of topography, lots of elevation gain... so we’re dealing with repeater systems,” he said.

“In order to communicate in this park, we need to use that system. So how does that look when Aspen Health takes over our dispatch centre?”

The most reasonable thing, Van Tighem said, would be for the province set up a sub-contract that would allow for Jasper’s EMS to continue using its current dispatch system. Parks Canada dispatch supervisor Patrick Harvey said his concern at the moment is how emergency response communication will be coordinated. 

“Their dispatch centre right now is in communication with both ambulance and warden service, and they haven’t approached us yet as to how they’re going to deal with that,” he said, adding that he’s sitting back to see what will happen. “You know what, nobody has approached us yet with any movement forward, so I don’t know what their plans are.”

Harvey said a dispatch centre must be assigned before  he’ll worry about the service. “Until that decision is made it’s hard to guess on what the outcome’s going to be on how communication’s going to be maintained,” he said.

Alberta Health and Wellness wouldn’t address concerns about how the takeover might be successfully implemented.

“That’s all going to be managed and those concerns will be taken into consideration,” said spokesperson Shannon Haggarty. “But those are all part of ongoing discussions right now before the takeover happens in April. That’s just one of many things that has to be worked out.”

Haggarty said the province set its completion date for April to allow time for issues to be addressed. “The bottom line is that’s part of what the transition time is about,” she said. “There are meetings ongoing with all of the stakeholders to address any of those concerns, and then they will be moving to a different dispatch system.

“But in terms of what that actually means, nobody would actually notice a difference.”

Van Tighem asserted his priority is maintaining service. With a centralized dispatch there’s a potential, he said, that EMS might be dispatched to an accident only to realize they need firefighter assistance on the scene, which would result in a lag time.

“That’s the worse-cased scenario,” he said.