The Alberta Government recently announced plans to decrease ambulance response times, and one of the steps they plan on taking is adding 10 ambulances to Calgary and Edmonton each.
Operations Manager with Wheatland EMS Kevin Link explained this may not impact Strathmore directly as strong as some may expect, and this is due to the 10 point plan, which was implemented early last year to try and address some of the big issues surrounding healthcare in the province.
"There's been a very purposeful drive to get the suburban rural resources such as Strathmore back to their municipalities instead of keeping them within metro Calgary doing events, that was happening a great deal at the time a year ago," he said.
According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), the metro response plan within the 10 point plan has greatly reduced the number of ambulances from other communities going to Calgary.
"Before this change, ambulances from communities including Airdrie and Cochrane may have been brought into the City of Calgary about 400 times per week. After implementing this plan, as of October 2022 (the most recently available data), that number has dropped to about 130," AHS wrote on their webpage outlining the 10 point plan.
Even though Link believes the increased ambulances in Calgary will have "a nominal impact" on Strathmore and Wheatland County, he still believes it's a great step in the right direction, as Calgarians have experienced longer response times as a result of other communities' ambulances not responding as often. He also explained that since Alberta has a provincial EMS system, what benefits one municipality benefits us all in the long run.
"One of those ten ambulances may be available to respond to a Strathmore or Wheatland County resident within Calgary, so it's beneficial to Albertans as a whole," he said.
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Fri, Apr 19, 1:30 PM
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