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Canmore empty of ambulances many times this summer

A town hall meeting will be held at the Canmore Legion on Thursday, Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. to inform residents about challenges leading to lack of ambulances, and to form a citizen action group to work with other communities in Alberta experiencing similar problems

CANMORE – The number of times Canmore is without an ambulance in the community continues to grow, which according to local paramedics and agencies is putting patient care and lives in danger.

Local EMS paramedics are advocating for the two ambulances designated to serve Canmore to remain here instead of being called away to other locations such as Calgary and Cochrane, potentially for the entire day.

A town hall meeting will be held at the Canmore Legion on Thursday, Sept. 9 at 6 p.m. to educate and inform residents on what’s happening in the Bow Valley and to form a citizen action group to work with other communities in Alberta experiencing similar problems.

“We see it as a public safety issue because our two designated ambulances for Canmore are not here often enough,” said a local paramedic who wished to remain anonymous over concern of job repercussions with Alberta Health Services (AHS).

“The number of times there is no available ambulance in town is several times a week for hours at a time.”

AHS’s current province-wide dispatch system for EMS requires the closest ambulance to go on every call, regardless of the priority status.

Canmore ambulances are dispatched to Calgary from both the Canmore station and after clearing a city hospital. Local ambulances are also flexed to Cochrane, which means they are moving from station to station to adjust coverage.

In addition, paramedics are required to stay with a patient until a bed is available to treat the patient, which can often take hours of time instead of heading back to Canmore. 

“Our community ends up with a delayed response because we’re not around,” the paramedic said.

Last week, Canmore was without ambulances for lengthy periods of time on Aug. 25, 26 and 28. On the Wednesday, one ambulance was transferring a patient to a Calgary hospital and the other one was stuck doing other calls in the city.

A 26-year-old Canmore man who rode his bike into a pole at high speed at the intersection of Benchlands and Bow Valley trails on July 24 had to wait for an ambulance to arrive from Banff, which is about 25-kms away.

With both Canmore ambulances in Calgary, Canmore Fire-Rescue made it to the scene first, with a crew of three beginning lifesaving measures on “significant facial and head trauma" injuries.

“We had a really significant – that ended in tragedy – trauma event here that was roughly 20 to 25 minutes for the ambulance to get on scene, and the ambulance came from Banff,” said Canmore fire chief Walter Gahler.

“Our fire crews did everything they can to give the person a chance, and I read the reports and talked to the staff, and they did everything they possibly could, but it’s just a long time.”

As Canmore gets busier and visitation in neighbouring Kananaskis Country soars to more than five million people, ambulances are pulled away from the community to transfer patients to Calgary more and more often.

“Our call volume and geographical location supports two ambulances so our community cannot risk losing one to Calgary all shift,” said the EMS paramedic.

“The delayed first response and transport has a huge impact on patient care.”

Canmore Fire-Rescue responds to serious and life-threatening incidents, providing basic life support and advanced life support intervention, but unlike EMS, has no authority to transport patients.

Gahler, who is also a director for urban fire departments within the Alberta Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA), said the department has great respect for its EMS partners, but adds its voice to those concerned there may not be enough resources or enough ambulances.

“We’re seeing that in the amount of times we get on scene to a medical assist first, and how long we’re there until the ambulance arrives. It’s through no fault of those ambulance crews, it is strictly that they don’t have enough resources to cover it,” he said.

“We see the pressures they’re under and we also see the negative outcomes to the public… We know that the degradation is happening, the level of service is slipping in the community and it becomes a mater of public safety.”

Gahler said Canmore Fire-Rescue has responded to 189 medical assist calls between Jan. 1 and Aug. 30.

Of the 189, he said Canmore Fire-Rescue was first on scene 107 times and EMS was first there on 51 occasions. One of the calls EMS and firefighters arrived at the same time and five were reported as unknown.

“It’s almost a two-to-one ratio that we’re on scene first,” Gahler said.

Canmore Fire-Rescue’s average on-scene arrival time is about seven-and-a-half minutes, Gahler said.

“That’s average so you’re going to have events where the ambulance arrived one, two, three minutes after us, but then we’ve had many calls where they’ve arrived 20, 30 minutes after the time of our arrival,” he said. “That’s quite disconcerting.”

AHS did not provide the Outlook with statistics on the number of times there are no ambulances in Canmore.

In 2017, a Banff ambulance responded to a drowning at Quarry Lake because there were no Canmore ambulances immediately available.

Gahler said there are many other “horrible stories.”

“There’s lots of horrible anecdotal calls with long, long waits with very, very sick people, which has firefighters on scene managing the situation until the ambulances can get there,” he said.

Gahler said Canmore is fortunate fire trucks have a paramedic on board about 60 to 70 per cent of the time, with basic life support practitioners on the trucks 24/7.

“We’re able to provide some interventions that can really help a person’s outcome of medical or trauma issue positively,” he said.

“When we see ambulances taking so much longer to get on scene and the amount of time we get there first – and it is absolutely no disparaging comment against the paramedics – it’s just a concern that their system isn’t fully supported.”

Speaking as an AFCA director, Gahler said the challenges surrounding this issue are happening in communities all over the province.

“We meet very regularly and this is a very active topic of conversation in that group,” he said.

EMS paramedics want AHS to consider a better system for Canmore than the current system status management (SSM) – essentially the operating guidelines for how ambulances are dispatched.

Locally, paramedics are looking for an evidence-based response plan, with Canmore EMS responding only to highest priority requests outside the service area and having ability to decline a call if there is only one remaining unit in Canmore.

Upon leaving a Calgary hospital, Canmore EMS wants to be able to return directly back to the service area.

The local paramedic recalled a busy Saturday in August when the valley was empty of ambulances in both Banff and Canmore.

“We had no resources out here,” she said.

Banff-Kananaskis MLA Miranda Rosin has been brought into the discussions.

She said one of the primary issues is the growing number of emergency calls and rescues in Canmore, Banff and Kananaskis for injured hikers, bikers, mountaineers and other recreationists.

“A problem is that our ambulances are often not in our towns and they are stuck in Calgary, not servicing the communities where they are from,” she said.

After meetings with ER doctors in Banff, Rosin said it has become evident that a lack of CT scan availability on evenings and weekends at the Canmore hospital is part of the problem because patients must be transferred by ambulance to a Calgary hospital.

She said she spoke with Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro on Aug. 16 about the issue, including the need for CT scan availability so some patients don’t need to be transferred to Calgary, adding he was open to the idea perhaps as a pilot project.

“It might not work anywhere else in the province, but it might at least solve the issue locally and that’s a good place to start for us,” she said.

Rosin said AHS will look at expanding hours for CT scans at Canmore Hospital as soon as a new agreement with radiologists is finalized, likely later in the fall.

“They are already working on consideration of expanded hours into the agreement,” she said.

“Minister Shandro is just keeping Canmore Hospital in mind, so once that agreement is finalized, we can deploy some of those additional hours to Bow Valley.”

AHS, however, contends that Canmore is never without ambulance coverage.

Spokesperson James Wood said AHS operates a borderless provincial model, and while an ambulance may be based in one location, that doesn’t mean it serves only that location.

"If an ambulance serving Canmore is required elsewhere, other resources will be moved in to cover it," he said in an email. "Alberta Health Services monitors ambulance availability in real time and ensures resources are always available to respond to emergencies."

The organizers of the town hall meeting at the Canmore Legion on Sept. 9 are hoping for a strong turnout of local residents, with the aim of forming a citizen action group to help lobby for necessary changes.

These town hall-style meetings have been occurring throughout the province, including in Strathmore, Airdrie, Okotoks and Cochrane where there are concerns ambulances are being sucked up by calls in Calgary.

“We ultimately need that SSM change in order to keep that ambulance coverage in Canmore,” the local paramedic said. “But short-term we should make our voices heard that this is inappropriate for our community.”

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