Thursday, January 2, 2020
VOLUME 2 I ISSUE 27
MERIDIANSOURCE.CA
Seniors value allies for ambulance services GEOFF LEE WRITER
.................................. The Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society expects to make more progress in 2020 on increasing ambulance services in the Border City. Their optimism stems from their final meeting in 2019 with Lloydminster MLA Colleen Young, Wainwright-Vermilion-Lloydminster MLA Garth Rowswell and Lloydminster mayor Gerald Aalbers providing updates at the Legacy Centre. “We are pleased to see that we have our MLAs and our mayor working very hard on this issue,” said Graham Brown, president of the seniors’ advocacy group, at the late December meeting “We do have good communication and co-operation among all three. What we hear from the mayor today is that he is pushing hard on it.” Brown says the city has been promised two full time ambulances with advance life support or ALS paramedic services provided by WPD Ambulance, but that hasn’t materialized. “We have one and sometimes two. We’re looking that we need at least two full time.We need to expand the ambulance service,” he said. Aalbers had represented
the Border City at a fall ambulance conference in Saskatoon and reported delegates offered more than 600 suggestions for improving service in the province. “From our perspective, it’s ensuring that there’s good communication all the way around from ambulances to the health care professionals here in town, to the ambulances going into the big cities,” said Aalbers. He says one of the continuing challenges is being a border city with two sets of operating protocols from colleges of physicians and government health authorities — the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) and Alberta Health Services (AHS) providing services. “It makes it very challenging, but we’ll try to rise up and find a solution that’s the best for the community we can,” said Aalbers. He says the goal is to ensure there is a reasonable number of ambulances in the city with that number to be determined by working with respective health services and a contractor. “Will we get it solved in 2020? I’d like to say we will. If we don’t, we’re going to keep hammering away in 2021.” Brown says it’s encouraging to know the the Memo-
Geoff Lee Meridian Source
Graham Brown, left, president of the Lloydminster Concerned Citizens for Seniors Care Society, is optimistic increased ambulance service will come to the Border City in 2020. His hopes are based on reports from Lloydminster MLA Colleen Young, mayor Gerald Aalbers and Wainwright-VermilionLloydminster MLA Garth Rowswell at the final meeting of 2019 at the Legacy Centre.
randum of Understanding on how AHS and SHA operate EMS services in Lloydminster is also being renegotiated. “There seems to be a lot of discussions with the ministers and assistant deputy ministers. Hopefully we’ll be able to start moving some of these issues forward together,” he said. Colleen Young noted there are still some issues in regards to recruitment of paramedics for Lloydminster. “There are still more issues between the private operator (WPD) and the government on the contract that’s in place and those are being worked
on,” said Young. She noted those issues include wage disparity and workload for part-time vs full-time employees. Young says until SHA and the ambulance resolve issues around protocol and work/ life balance with EMS personnel, they can’t determine what ambulance services under two contracts or one contract would look like in the Border City. She is optimistic the yardsticks will move quickly in 2020. “I think we have some conversations going on between the minister of Rural and Remote Health in Saskatch-
ewan as well as the minister of Health in Alberta,” said Young. Rowswell is also trying to make the EMS issue in Lloydminster an action item for AHS in 2020. “I think the ministry (AHS) is aware of the problem. I’ve expressed it to them,” said Rowswell. “I’m trying to get fully informed and see where the roadblocks are and get them taken down.” Rowswell says the issue in his mind is it appears like Lloydminster doesn’t have an appropriate number of ambulances. “I’ve been making the minister aware of that and trying to get them to act on it,” he said. He is also hoping there can be a legislative change in Alberta to expand Connect Care for sharing health information across the border. “We also need legislation from Saskatchewan to do it reciprocally as well so what I’m trying to get is when and where is this legislation going to be dealt with,” said Rowswell. “I’m going to aim for this spring and if I get commitment that way then I’m going to be talking to Colleen (Young) to say ‘is there anything you can do on your end’ to make it reciprocal.”