Alberta Municipality Votes to Keep Fire-based EMS

May 15, 2009 – Ft. McMurray, AB Local 2494 and the Wood Buffalo Regional Council are rejecting the Alberta province’s quest to take over ambulance services province-wide. Concerned about what effect a change in ambulance service would have on public safety, the council has voted to keep the ambulance service within the fire department.

“When planning to take over ambulance services, the provincial government did not consult any of the fire-based EMS systems like the one we have here,” says Brad Grainger, president of Ft. McMurray, AB Local 2494. “As a result, many significant safety issues were not given proper consideration.”

Grainger sites the fact that Alberta would be running all of its ambulances out of the hospital, causing some response times to be as long as 20 minutes. Local 2494 cross-trained fire fighter/paramedics and EMTs are on the scene of every emergency in less than five minutes.

Additionally, the province has only approved four ambulances to run out of Wood Buffalo. Since the municipality has no mutual aid agreements, four is not enough. “We sometimes run six or seven ambulances at a time,” notes Grainger.

On May 29, 2008, Alberta’s government announced its decision to take over ground ambulance services from municipalities to Alberta Health Services. The initiative was effective April 1, 2009.

As part of the transition plan, municipalities can opt to dissolve their existing ambulance service and become part of Alberta Health Services or enter into a two-year agreement to gradually turn over services to Alberta Health Services.

Alberta Health has stated that it will not finance fire-based EMS systems beyond first response. In other words, municipalities must absorb additional costs.

In Wood Buffalo’s case, the regional council voted against transitioning to Alberta Health Services and to spend the next two years lobbying the Alberta government to keep its fire-based EMS system permanently. Local 2494 members will be assisting with those lobbing efforts.

Wood Buffalo is the only municipality to fight Alberta’s decision to transition EMS services to the province.