MORGAN： 'Premier Smith's EMS policy showing remarkable success.'
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
189.51132
Summary
As recently as last fall, Albertans were dying, literally dying, while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Now, thanks to the government of the United Conservative Party of Alberta, ambulance response times have dropped dramatically, and in a few months, they have actually improved.
Transcript
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So last weekend, we had some healthcare statistics quietly released with a little fanfare.
00:00:04.660
You know, when they drop it on the weekend, they're not really looking for people to pay
00:00:08.800
And today, Legacy Media, of course, has already forgotten those statistics, and it's a pity
00:00:12.460
because the dramatic improvement in waiting times for ambulances due to new policies implemented
00:00:17.680
by the UCP should be making headlines right now.
00:00:20.900
As recently as last fall, Albertans were dying, literally dying while waiting for ambulance
00:00:26.020
One of the worst cases was an elderly woman who bled out after a dog attack just minutes
00:00:33.800
She had to wait 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
00:00:36.700
We had red alert periods in Calgary and Edmonton where there were no ambulances available at
00:00:42.660
Meanwhile, rural ambulances would get pulled into urban centers, and then rural firefighters
00:00:47.160
and police officers had to take on paramedic rolls as they desperately tried to transport
00:00:52.620
Now, paramedics and citizens have been raising concerns about this issue for years.
00:00:57.560
We've had multiple governments paying lip service to the problem, but none have done
00:01:00.980
really anything aside from tossing more money at the issue, and it didn't have much effect.
00:01:07.040
Daniel Smith raised the EMS crisis as an issue while running for the UCP leadership, and she
00:01:11.560
promised to act upon it when she became premier.
00:01:13.580
Well, last December, the Smith government announced changes that were going to be made
00:01:20.320
To begin with, vans were going to be equipped and contracted for use in non-emergency transfers
00:01:25.780
Ambulances and trained paramedic teams have been doing that for up to 75 trips a day when
00:01:29.960
they weren't really in need of emergency services, these transports.
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Meanwhile, of course, emergencies are happening.
00:01:35.000
The NDP predictably responded with hysterics and accused Smith of wanting to harm patients
00:01:41.860
In those cases, despite the hyperbole from the NDP, Uber actually is often a more appropriate
00:01:46.720
option than a fully equipped ambulance for a non-emergency patient transfer.
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Smith also vowed to increase physicians, nurses, and other resources for triage in emergency
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rooms to reduce the time paramedics are stuck doing hallway care because the hospitals weren't
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And we've had at times as many as 20 ambulances piled up outside of hospitals as paramedics can't
00:02:07.360
find hospital staff willing to take the patient.
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NDP health critic David Shepard panned the plan saying, I can't see this announcement
00:02:14.380
being anything but an incredible disappointment to Alberta's paramedics and frontline health
00:02:20.660
And the UCP government also started to set timelines for emergency rooms to take patients.
00:02:24.560
Then again, the NDP accused the government of forcing paramedics to dump and run with patients,
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Hospitals were expected to admit patients from ambulances in less than 40 minutes.
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So now it's been a few months and the numbers are in and they look fantastic.
00:02:41.540
In November of 2022, so just last November, Alberta, well, Calgary was in a state of EMS
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In one month, 4.2 hours, the city of Calgary, 1.4 million people had no ambulances.
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Last April, that number was down to four minutes.
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Ambulance response times last November, they averaged 22 minutes in urban areas and 64
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That's a pretty long time if you're in serious, serious condition.
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Well, last April, those response times had dropped to 12 minutes in urban areas and 40 in rural
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Lives are going to be saved thanks to the changes made by the UCP to EMS policies.
00:03:26.460
We should be shouting this from the rooftops and examining more common sense approaches to
00:03:32.920
Unfortunately, partisan loathing of Daniel Smith has rendered the establishment and legacy media
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outlets incapable of crediting Smith with doing something right.
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The bloated Alberta Health Services bureaucracy has created an inefficient health care system
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incapable of embracing change or innovation in care.
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And in firing the inept board of the health services and forcing common sense solutions to
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the problems, Smith's actually managed to bring about quick success with a crisis that
00:04:01.300
Now, Smith is taking a strong no-nonsense approach with taking on the addiction epidemic as well.
00:04:06.180
She's surrounding herself with treatment specialists and recovered addicts rather than listening
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to the usual suspects in the establishment who insist on further enablement policies.
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Enablement policies for addicts have failed and they're failing throughout North America.
00:04:18.780
Overdoses are continuing to climb while the number of addicted people keeps growing.
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We need results-based policy rather than aspirational ideological PAP.
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Smith seems to be willing to cut through the BS and impose policies that work rather than pursuing
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If Smith loses the election due to an establishment that refuses to accept positive changes, the
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health care system and the addicts in need of treatment will all suffer for it.
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If we can't credit a success, we're never going to see more of it.