Alberta to partner with private ambulance companies in Edmonton and Calgary: Minister of Health

Alberta Health Services (AHS) partners with private companies to help transport non-emergency patients between medical facilities.

At a press conference Thursday, Health Minister Adriana LaGrange announced that the province has contracted two ambulance companies to provide interfacility transfers (IFTs) in Edmonton and Calgary.

LaGrange said the services will free up AHS ambulances in those cities and surrounding areas.

“Transferring low-acuity people who have to travel between health care facilities relieves pressure on the overall EMS system so that high-acuity cases can be handled by paramedics with the highest life-saving potential,” LaGrange said.

Edmonton Associated Ambulance and Services (Whitecourt) Ltd. will receive 26 units from the company, and Guardian Ambulance Ltd. Gives Calgary 19 units.

Ambulances will also serve smaller towns within 50 kilometers of those cities, and the units are expected to be operational in June and July.

The Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA), Alberta's paramedic union, disputed the announcement in a press release Thursday.

HSAA President Mike Parker said, “This government has corrected its failed approach to commercial healthcare after the complete failure to transition public laboratory services to DynaLIFE a few months ago.” “They're setting up Albertans today to face the same problems with EMS.”

HSAA said Medavi West, which owns Guardian Ambulance Ltd, has had a detrimental effect on emergency services in New Brunswick since taking over in 2017.

A 2020 report by New Brunswick's auditor general found the company lacked oversight and failed to serve rural communities.

“Not only does this government fail to learn from its own mistakes in health care that benefit labs, it also chooses not to learn from the mistakes of others with the specific company offering the IFT contract,” Parker said. produce.

Dr. Luanna Metz, NDP health critic, also criticized the announcement Thursday.

“Frontline paramedics tell us that contracting out this service will make an already broken system worse, and they are concerned about the accounting of some of the companies that have been awarded the contracts,” Metz said.

Marty Scott, AHS executive director of EMS provincial programs, said private ambulances are dispatched through AHS and follow the same protocols and standards as provincial ambulances.

According to Scott, the interfacility transport pilot project in Red Deer anticipates that the added services will free up ambulances in both urban and rural areas, where resources were previously drawn to support urban shortages.

“Very quickly into the pilot, we realized that the rural communities were better covered because the resources were being sent from Red Deer to see patients rather than a local resource,” Scott said.

According to the province, there are approximately 174,000 inter-institutional transfers each year.

Scott said AHS is looking at other Alberta communities where services could be used.

LaGrange also announced an independent review of air ambulance services and a review of the paramedic workforce was launched. He said a report is expected in late summer or early fall.