Western Standard - Retired EMS worker Brian Winter shares on the state of Alberta’s EMS system

00:00:00.000 ambulances hit another crisis level firefighters are waiting for hours for ambulance service

00:00:04.960 um things are getting really really dangerous out there with this shortage of uh ems coverage

00:00:10.480 right now and you've been working i guess to address that uh in cochran uh yes uh corey i'm

00:00:16.880 a retired paramedic at times over 30 years and uh last um august uh there was a public meeting held

00:00:25.920 at the cochran legion organized by another um retired paramedic just to let the citizens of

00:00:33.280 cochran know that there's there's issues with the current ambulance system run by the province

00:00:39.280 we had about 80 people in attendance and from that 80 people uh we have formed a cochran ems citizen

00:00:48.560 action group uh and we have we have 14 members uh where we meet uh corey uh twice a month we have

00:00:56.640 an agenda we develop terms of reference and what we're trying to do uh corey is just let the citizens

00:01:04.000 know that uh there are issues and uh we had an open house or we had a booth at the annual

00:01:12.400 uh a chamber of commerce trade show this weekend uh and um we had uh 268 people sign a petition uh

00:01:23.360 currently uh before the trade show we had about uh 2300 names uh that uh members of our group have

00:01:30.320 gone door to door uh and now we've got uh roughly uh about 2350 3360 signatures uh and uh we're meeting

00:01:42.320 with our mla uh peter gunthry um next tuesday evening uh to present the petition to him and he's agreed

00:01:49.920 to take it to the health minister uh and basically uh we as a action group corey figured that there are

00:01:56.720 three simple ways that we can actually fix the system uh number one is that our emergency crews are

00:02:04.800 doing non-emergency transfers uh into calgary uh would which is taking our current unit into the calgary

00:02:12.240 system and once they get in there corey they're waiting in the hospital for four five six hours

00:02:19.200 uh our another crew is doing another transfer and then we're left with no units protecting cochrane

00:02:26.240 so when someone calls uh for a medical emergency uh the units could be coming from anywhere in southern

00:02:32.960 alberta they could be coming from banff they could be coming from canmore they could be coming from

00:02:37.920 didsbury uh and to us it's just not acceptable so number one what we've said is that let's farm out 0.90

00:02:46.240 the non-emergency transfers to another alternate source whether that's private uh or whether

00:02:53.200 the ahs step up and put more transfer units there we don't really care we just want to keep our

00:02:59.360 emergency ambulances in cochrane number two is hospital wait times

00:03:04.160 uh this is just an issue you can go into any particular hospital and see five six eight ten

00:03:11.680 ambulances lined up uh and they've got their patients in the hallway uh where uh these uh paramedics are

00:03:19.040 basically looking after a patient until there's a vat available uh number two is or number three uh corey

00:03:26.240 is flexing uh our crew uh starts uh at a shift in calgary and they're flexed anywhere in southern

00:03:34.640 alberta they're going to uh oles they're going to didsbury uh and uh which is again keeping our

00:03:42.720 emergency crews uh away from cochrane so we have come up with three simple plans and that's what our

00:03:48.880 our petition is about uh if and these these could be fixed very easily uh so if they took our our

00:03:56.320 particular three points uh and applied them uh it would keep our units in cochrane yeah and what i

00:04:05.360 appreciate what you're up to is is again you're not coming from an ideology the bottom line is you just

00:04:09.360 want to get more ambulances available to people when they need them that's the thing as you said whether

00:04:14.560 it's public whether it's private it doesn't really matter the bottom line is is there's under service

00:04:18.560 right now and it has to change and you've pointed out three ways that that can be improved um i'd like

00:04:24.800 to get back to the broader policy issues in a few minutes but something else impressed me you're

00:04:29.040 working on a proactive thing in that you're accepting though that there's going to be slow service

00:04:33.440 and response times for a while so working on preparing people at least to be able to uh just

00:04:38.480 people themselves to empower themselves to respond to emergencies and perhaps stabilize people and and

00:04:43.200 save their lives until an ems officer can get there can you expand a bit on that yeah basically

00:04:48.400 at our booth we had on the weekend we said if you know the unit's going to be delayed for whatever

00:04:53.760 length of time do you have a plan b uh and we had uh information there in first aid courses we had

00:05:01.680 information there on cpr courses and we also distributed the amount of aeds that are in cochrane

00:05:08.800 currently we have 20 aeds located through cochrane uh and just to give you an example uh cory last

00:05:16.800 september a 70 year old golfer collapsed at the ninth hole in cochrane uh he went down there happened

00:05:25.840 to be residents uh that back onto the golf course uh they went out and performed cpr the aed was uh retrieved

00:05:34.800 from the lobby of the uh of the golf club and he was revived before ems arrived because they were

00:05:42.240 delayed uh and currently uh right now uh we're holding uh two um uh uh charity golf tournaments one in

00:05:51.600 calgary uh next week or sorry next month and one in uh cochrane uh next september and all the proceeds

00:05:59.440 are going toward more aeds in cochrane uh since we started our campaign a local service group uh cory

00:06:08.560 has agreed to donate twenty thousand dollars to purchase to purchase more aeds in cochrane so if

00:06:15.120 we get 10 or 15 000 from these charity golf tournaments put it with the 20 we'll have 35 000

00:06:22.400 that we can purchase and increase the number of aeds in cochrane and we want them registered

00:06:29.040 so if a particular person is calling and saying that uh the uh an individual has collapsed there's

00:06:36.080 no pulse no heartbeat the dispatcher will say hey you do you know you have an aed uh within a block or

00:06:42.720 two blocks or whatever the situation is uh and um in this particular case uh the gentleman the 70 year

00:06:49.440 old gentleman uh is out currently uh golfing but he was clinically dead uh before uh an aed was used

00:06:57.440 the last september yeah and just to expand a bit for people who aren't familiar so an aed is a

00:07:03.520 kind of a portable layperson's defibrillator unit and and i've i got taught on those in uh occupational

00:07:10.080 for aid in the past they're quite user friendly and safe uh but you know not everybody necessarily

00:07:15.120 knows what those are and we're seeing more and more of them but the more we can see out there the

00:07:19.040 better of course because you never know where or when you're going to need one oh exactly and they're

00:07:22.960 they're basically foolproof you're turning the thing on it actually talks you through how to use

00:07:27.760 it uh and if the person has a pulse uh it will basically say stop and evaluate the patient

00:07:34.960 um so it requires a bit of instructions but anybody can use them uh and there's some maintenance that's

00:07:42.800 required uh with respect to the pads and the batteries uh and but basically they're uh they're sort

00:07:49.600 of a foolproof thing um and and it the aeds uh is what really saves the patient uh cpr will keep the

00:07:58.400 blood flowing uh but aeds is what happens when you shock the the heart to get the heart back into some

00:08:04.720 type of rhythm yeah so and there were other things you'd mentioned uh as i kind of talked about there's

00:08:09.920 first aid courses people could take uh down in the urban areas but we're seeing it everywhere too keeping

00:08:15.200 naloxone handy uh epinephrine even i mean there's there's items that need immediate intervention with

00:08:22.160 people that laid people could actually apply if they just had a little of the knowledge and resources in

00:08:26.960 order to do it uh you know just assuming that you're going to have a longer time for an ems arrival

00:08:31.120 well that's correct you know it's sort of a band-aid effect uh until we can resolve the ems crisis in

00:08:37.840 cochran and alberta uh but um we're encouraging the residents of cochran and area uh to make sure

00:08:45.760 that they have a current cpr a current first aid course they know what an aed is uh and in fact

00:08:54.080 two members of our 14 member committee have already purchased personal aeds uh they run roughly about

00:09:02.640 fourteen fifteen hundred dollars uh depending on where you buy them from uh so they have taken

00:09:08.480 upon themselves to purchase aeds for their own personal family yeah so uh you know moving away

00:09:15.360 from that and like i said i just like that at least you know it's uh being uh pragmatic i mean we just

00:09:21.920 there's a bigger issue to be addressed and it's not saying we can kick the can down the road for ems

00:09:26.000 response times it's just saying hey as citizens there's lots of things you can do to protect yourself in

00:09:30.320 the meantime even if we fix the ems response time issue somehow it'd be good to have that many more

00:09:35.120 uh resources and people trained on them uh if they should ever need them so getting back to that

00:09:40.800 though i mean it's particularly acute with with rural uh services though i mean cochran could barely

00:09:45.840 be called rural these days it seems to be actually mostly anything that's nearby a large center like

00:09:49.840 calgary i live in prittis our ambulance gets pulled into the city all the time uh this has been new

00:09:55.920 i mean since what was it during else it's delmec's time i believe when they sort of centralized all the

00:10:00.960 uh ems services wasn't it yeah basically uh we ran in cochran the ambulance service started on july 1st

00:10:08.320 1983. uh i actually uh was a paramedic in calgary came out to cochran in the early 80s i took the title

00:10:16.720 of fire chief because i was with the fire department and then in july 1st 83 we started our own service

00:10:23.360 uh and then the province uh for whatever means decided to take over the service in 2009 uh and

00:10:30.640 ever since then uh it's gone downhill um in 2009 before we took the ambulance service over we had

00:10:38.640 two first line response units in 2022 with the population of cochran close to 35 000 people triple

00:10:46.640 we still have 2000 we still have two units um so it really hasn't come up uh kept up with the uh with

00:10:54.080 the population growth and the amount of calls that we've got um and so if if the government would do

00:11:00.560 our three simple steps it's a start on trying to keep our units in cochran and rather having a unit

00:11:07.600 coming uh there's been situations where our cars started from vulcan coming to cochran for whatever

00:11:14.800 instant uh luckily there were cars that cleared from that closest hospital but can you imagine

00:11:20.480 having a car coming from vulcan if you've got a heart attack or a stroke or whatever it's just it's

00:11:26.640 not acceptable corey no and then it's it's not just the long runs but it's something you've referenced

00:11:32.400 earlier too whether it was inpatient transfer or other things but when they get to those larger

00:11:36.480 hospitals they can often be locked in and doing hallway care i wrote a column on this last uh summer and i

00:11:42.320 i drove by and checked out the rocky view just randomly and pulled in and went out back and

00:11:46.720 and sure enough there were i counted nine ambulances all parked behind there and presumably all of the

00:11:52.960 attendants were stuck inside at the hospital that should be out and about somewhere i mean ready or

00:11:59.600 possibly in the middle of providing services but then it gets into a kind of a larger uh more complicated

00:12:06.320 issue because then uh it comes down to the health care itself and and uh you know uh hospital staff

00:12:11.440 signing off on taking patients right yeah exactly and and uh we we've been told uh that it's if you go

00:12:18.240 ahead and drop off a patient at a hospital it's called abandonment but we're not abandoning them in the

00:12:25.120 in a jungle somewhere we're taking them to a first class hospital in a in a particular urban setting

00:12:32.800 um and the problem is is that they're downloading the the uh the availability of the for us to look after or the

00:12:41.280 paramedics look after the the patients we brought in because they're short-staffed uh when we ran the

00:12:47.600 service in cochran if you spent more than 15 minutes at the hospital you were too long uh if you're a

00:12:54.720 paramedic attending you would give your report to the tree archoners she would tell you what bed you

00:12:59.920 would need your partner would get the ambulance ready and within 15 minutes we're gone but now in 2009

00:13:06.320 uh corey the uh the paramedics are part of the ahs staff so i don't know they they think they can

00:13:13.040 download the the availability of the patients to the paramedics which is absolutely wrong in fact

00:13:20.320 i think it's criminal i think it's criminal that they're holding hostage the the the paramedics at

00:13:27.520 at a hospital where they should be out in their area and for us it should be back in cochran 0.94

00:13:33.520 well yeah i mean it's a waste of specially trained skill sets i mean they're specially trained people

00:13:39.120 in hospital for caring for patients once they come in uh an ems attendant a paramedic i mean

00:13:44.480 they've got the training and the ability to be out and about that's the point that's the purpose

00:13:49.040 they should be in the field and and either you know taking part in a transfer or stabilizing

00:13:53.040 something out there and we're just completely misappropriating a resource when we're using them

00:13:58.480 as as care personnel in in hospital hallways well that's right and they're using the paramedic staff

00:14:04.960 as you want to say in quotations babysitting uh uh now if you bring it if you walk into the hospital

00:14:13.200 uh you have there's a clock there saying your particular time to look at get looked at could

00:14:18.720 be two or three or four hours uh but the the only difference is that we're bringing somebody in by

00:14:25.920 ambulance if it's critical they probably will get a bed if it's not critical they'll say go to the

00:14:32.320 hallway and wait until your turn comes up well why can't we put the that particular patient in the

00:14:37.680 waiter room as if he walked in but no we uh the uh the system won't allow us to do that cory

00:14:45.440 yeah so there's i mean there's trouble on a lot of fronts i mean i we've i've been screaming this one

00:14:50.160 from the rooftops for a while as we know we both know don sharp and he's a great guy and he's

00:14:54.320 yeah brought my attention to it i went to meetings down in okotoks that he was helping host and uh

00:14:59.360 it just seems once in a while we'll have a a tragedy and this will hit the news and everybody

00:15:03.760 gets upset and then they all forget about it but this problem just isn't going away uh but at least

00:15:09.520 you're making a two-fold approach one with at least well let's see how we as citizens can get up and

00:15:14.480 help each other and and help mitigate the the damage but at the same time we've got to change this

00:15:19.200 this system all together because it's just not working it's it's got to start at the top and and

00:15:24.080 look in an air degree was that last month they transported two patients by fire truck to their

00:15:31.360 urgent care in air degree because there was no ambulances available um and the city of calgary as

00:15:37.600 mentioned in the herald last week i think a crew stayed with the patient for three hours waiting for

00:15:42.960 an ambulance well that takes that particular fire crew out of service it's not fair it's not fair at

00:15:49.440 all no and again it's a different train i mean the fire crews are trained to respond to medical

00:15:54.720 emergencies but they're also trained to put out fires i mean if there'd have been a large fire

00:15:58.160 emergency that they could be delayed it goes all the way down the line it it does uh so um it's it's a

00:16:05.040 it's a it's a system it's a system failure uh but we we got to start somewhere so our 14

00:16:13.760 volunteer committee is very committed uh like i say we had a part of our crew went out and collected

00:16:20.480 almost 2500 signatures based on our three-point plan uh that's going to be meeting with our mla

00:16:26.880 next tuesday and he has promised to take that to the minister uh and you know those 2500 signatures

00:16:34.640 that could be five or ten or eight or twelve percent of the voting public for that particular mla

00:16:40.640 that's got to make a difference corey absolutely well i really appreciate you coming on to talk

00:16:46.400 to us and i appreciate the work you're doing i mean all we can do is keep trying and keep hammering on

00:16:50.320 it and reminding them and and hopefully eventually we'll get a positive change where can people find

00:16:54.800 more information on what you're doing out in cochran and uh you know perhaps helping out or taking part

00:16:59.280 yeah uh if we have a a facebook page if they go to a cochran uh uh ems uh citizen action group uh

00:17:07.840 you'll pick up our facebook page or we're keep we're trying to keep the residents of cochran

00:17:12.560 updated uh of uh you know of success of success stories plus failures uh and to let them know what's

00:17:19.520 happening in in the community of cochran um there are other community groups around uh there's airdrie

00:17:25.200 there's ocotox there's bamf there's canmore uh and they can go to those particular websites as well

00:17:31.520 or facebook pages to see what's happening in their community

Western Standard - May 10, 2022

Retired EMS worker Brian Winter shares on the state of Alberta’s EMS system

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