Mayors want dispatch services inquiry
By Lethbridge Herald on February 1, 2021.
Mayor Tara Veer of Red Deer, Mayor Chris Spearman of Lethbridge, Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary, and Mayor Don Scott of the RM of Wood Buffalo hold a joint news conference on Monday to call for a third-party independent review of EMS dispatch consolidation in light of reports of system failures and unnecessary delays in dispatching medical help by Alberta Health Services EMS.Tim Kalinowski
Lethbridge Herald
tkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
The mayors of Red Deer, Calgary, Wood Buffalo and Lethbridge are calling for an immediate inquiry into a major medical dispatch services failure at Alberta Health Service’s South Communications centre in Calgary on Jan. 26, and an immediate third-party review of emergency dispatch consolidation after reports of slow response times in critical incidents emerged in several of the jurisdictions since AHS took over ambulance dispatch in the four cities and regions after Jan. 12.
Mayors Tara Veer, Naheed Nenshi, Don Scott and Chris Spearman informed the media of these failures during a press conference on Monday.
Regarding the AHS dispatch centre’s failure, the mayors reported a period of over an hour between 10:30 p.m. and 11:42 p.m. on Jan. 26 when most of southern Alberta’s EMS services were essentially left blind by major technological issues at the South Communication centre.
Due to this system failure, AHS was forced to dispatch ambulances manually as dispatchers lost connection to the Computer Automated Dispatch interface system between Alberta Health Services and local Fire services, mobile data terminals, GPS tracking of ambulances, and lost the ability to access ambulance mobile phone records to call the ambulances directly.
“AHS did not notify our (local) dispatchers at the time of outage,” explained Mayor Veer on behalf of all mayors.
“Nor has AHS provided any updates for clarification on the outage. Our emergency dispatchers have contacted AHS, and our staff have not received a full explanation for the outage. We are still assessing the full impact this technical blackout has had for our local patients.
“Our experience on this outage demonstrates AHS has not been transparent, and does not share their information with us as they had committed to do. Our emergency dispatchers should have been immediately contacted as soon as the incident occurred.”
Alberta Health Services EMS Chief Paramedic Darren Sandbeck confirmed at his own press conference later in the day the outage did occur, that there was no immediate follow-up with municipalities, and that AHS did not yet know the reason for the failure, but he disputed the time given by the mayors: saying it was only down for 42 minutes and that AHS has plans for these types of incidents, and those plans functioned smoothly on the night in question.
After Mayor Veers gave the rundown on the outage, each of the mayors reported incidents in their jurisdictions over the last month which, they say, show a third party independent review of EMS consolidation is necessary.
Mayor Spearman reported due to the technical outage on Jan. 26 there was a significant delay in responding to two serious emergency incidents that evening which, he believed, may have jeopardized those patients’ outcomes.
Sandbeck said he was aware of only two non-life-threatening incidents where delays were caused as a result of the outage, neither one in Lethbridge.
After a serious snowmobile accident in Anzac, a community 36 km southeast of Fort McMurray, Mayor Scott said AHS chose to dispatch an ambulance from the city 30 minutes away and did not call in the local volunteer fire department which could have been on the scene to render medical aid in less than 10 minutes. When the ambulance finally arrived to help the snowmobiler, they realized additional medical help was needed, and again AHS dispatched another ambulance from 30 minutes away– leaving a full 60 minutes before the incident could be dealt with appropriately.
Sandbeck said AHS dispatch had received a call from RCMP about the incident which was deemed an “unknown problem.” In such cases, he said, local fire departments do not get called out, and have not agreed to cover them as part of their service agreements with AHS. He defended the decision to send in an ambulance from 32 minutes away instead.
Mayor Nenshi said the AHS dispatch centre failed on Jan. 26 just 13 hours after taking over in the City of Calgary, and did not know they had a significant problem until they were informed by EMS dispatchers working for the City of Calgary’s other emergency services about it. He also related an example of an incident where a medical emergency occurred within close proximity to two fire stations, and AHS never informed those departments about the incident which could have been on the scene in seconds.
Sandbeck responded not every situation requires a fire response, and dispatching an ambulance is more appropriate in most cases. He did not respond to Nenshi’s comments about AHS being informed by the City of Calgary about the system outage.
“Over the last several weeks,” Spearman concluded on behalf of all four mayors, “our worst fears around the centralization of EMS dispatch have been coming true. We have had several concerns leading up to, and including, the large technical failure last week which has impacted EMS dispatch. We understand there will be technical failures, but the lack of communication back to municipalities when this occurs is putting the health and safety of residents across the province of Alberta at risk.”
Sandbeck stated chalking up any of these incidents reported by the mayors to the recent decision to consolid ate EMS dispatch in Lethbridge, Red Deer, Wood Buffalo and Calgary is simply false.
“We are aware of the inaccurate claims being made regarding the recent consolidation of EMS dispatch in four municipalities in Alberta,” he said. “Let me be very clear. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest the recent consolidation of EMS dispatch has led to any delays or inappropriate responses in any of the communities where consolidation occurred. AHS EMS has been successfully dispatching ambulances for more than two thirds of the province for the last decade. We have seen nothing over the last few weeks to suggest that has changed.”
Sandbeck said occasional system outages such as the one that happened on Jan. 26 do occur from time to time, and would have potentially occurred regardless– having nothing to do with consolidation.
Spearman acknowledged sometimes technical failures happen, but what was unforgivable, in his mind, was the fact AHS never contacted local emergency services to inform them of the problem and what plans they had in place to mitigate these types of problems.
“The important thing is there is ongoing communication,” he said. “Due to confidentiality, I won’t go into the specifics. But in Lethbridge we are aware (since consolidation) of several delays, communication mix-ups, safety issues, and serious health incidents that were impacted, and are extremely concerning. And yet there appears to be no accountability for that failure at the provincial level, and no attempts to work with us and include us in helping to fix these issues.”
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“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Yet another example of how the Kenney UCP, et al, don’t have our better interests in mind and using their authoritarianism to do it.
So this will save each tax paying Albertan about what? $10 a year and all the while having slower emergency response? Is that right?
Then there’s a few billion in corporate tax cuts due to the backwards idea that it will create jobs.
Oh, and let’s not forget how most of us saw a massive increase in insurance premiums since Kenney eliminated the cap on corporate insurance greed.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say, the social media sites are filled with people who voted for Kenney, and now regret that decision.
What I see from the Kenney government, is much more money for corporations, and much less money for all us peasants.
Evidence, we want evidence, not what May or could have happened http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2021/01/we-all-live-in-internets-flatlands-now.html