Rally calls on minister to overturn AHS EMS dispatch decision
MAYORS FROM CITIES AFFECTED BY DECISION MEET WITH SHANDRO
NDP Official Opposition leader Rachel Notley joined Deputy Chief of Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services Kelly L’Hirondelle, International Association of Fire Fighters Local 237 President Warren Nelson and concerned local citizen Earl Barton at Fire Headquarters on Thursday in calling on Minister of Health Tyler Shandro to overturn an Alberta Health Services decision to cancel its local EMS dispatch contract with the City of Lethbridge.
Notley said this was clearly a non-partisan issue which four previous health ministers from both the former Progressive Conservative and NDP governments all overturned.
“When Lethbridge residents call for emergency help they have the right to expect that help will get to them quickly,” Notley said. “And that is what is happening right now thanks to the skill and professionalism of Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services, which has served this area as an integrated service for 108 years.
“Every few years Alberta Health Services approaches a new minister and tries to sell them on the idea that dispatch work should be moved out of these localized centres in Lethbridge, Wood Buffalo, Red Deer and Calgary, and into the AHS dispatch (centre),” she added. “In my experience as premier, I have also heard this pitch to our government in 2016. My Health Minister, Sarah Hoffman, and I looked at their evidence and their projected cost savings, and we said, ‘No.’