Mayor supports Wood Buffalo takeover of EMS dispatch

By Tim Kalinowski on February 11, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

A stunning resolution was passed unanimously on Tuesday evening by the Mayor and councillors of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo to no longer transfer 911 calls to the provincial AHS-run central dispatch centre, and thus take over local EMS Dispatch again without the consent of the province.
Mayor Chris Spearman said he was also open to the idea of introducing just such a resolution for council’s consideration in Lethbridge.
“I do agree with Mayor Scott in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo,” stated Spearman when asked by reporters about the issue on Wednesday. “We only act through a council meeting and a motion. I am prepared to bring forward a motion, but before I do, I want to work with our Chief and our administration, our (City) solicitor. We want to look at all the aspects of this and research it thoroughly, but I am certainly prepared to bring forth a resolution.
“I share (Scott’s) frustration,” Spearman later added. “We have written letters to the premier. We have written letters to the health minister, and we really haven’t had any responses that make any sense. We have had zero response from the premier, and basically the health minister has ignored us. His letters simply say that he hasn’t changed his mind, and he demonstrates no understanding of the issues.”
Lethbridge Fire Chief Marc Rathwell said there have been several recorded incidents of problems since AHS took over local dispatch in January which could have been life-threatening for local residents. These have been communicated on to AHS, he said, but he has received no communication or response about those concerns to date.
“They are struggling with trying to get ambulances to the correct address,” Rathwell explained.
“We have had public input on this, and they say, ‘I have given them the address three times, and they still sent the ambulance to the wrong location.’ So for those types of issues when we receive that information, we are sending it off quickly in a report back to AHS. We have been trying to get answers.”
Rathwell gave an example of a recent instance where AHS dispatch’s mishandling of information could have proved fatal for one local resident if his own fire and EMS members hadn’t taken the initiative in the situation.
“We were sent to a four-plex here in town for a critical medical problem,” he explained. “The crews were responding, but they were not given (by AHS) which unit it was. So as our crews arrive typically we have all that information right from the outset, and our crews, while they were waiting, said this was nonsense after three or four minutes. So they just went pounding on doors to find the patient. Again, that is just one example of several.”
Mayor Chris Spearman was asked by The Herald if he and the Mayor of Wood Buffalo were not potentially blowing things out of proportion given AHS only took over a month ago, and there were bound to be some initial hiccoughs in the transition as AHS dispatchers get more familiar with an area they have never dispatched to before.
“We were told that the transition was going to be seamless,” Spearman responded; “that we would notice absolutely no change in the level of service. That has turned out to be completely untrue. There has also been no commitment and not enough communication to fix the problems that are occurring. We don’t have confidence in the system, and we think our residents should have confidence in the system. We believe the most effective system is not in place, and we don’t think this is just initial issues. We believe given the way it is being managed and operated our hope for this (AHS) system improving– we don’t have great hopes for that to happen.”

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