Scott Cyr is working on a plan to help the Lakeland’s ambulance dispatching woes.
All dispatching in the Lakeland is done by Alberta Health Services in Edmonton. Dispatchers there often don’t have a very good understanding of the area, which leads to extremely dangerous results. An ambulance might be called to a rural property from Bonnyville when Cold Lake is closer for example. Sometimes when an ambulance is taking a patient from the Lakeland to Edmonton, the ambulance will be called to Edmonton jobs after dropping the patient off instead of going back. This has led to over 200 hours of code red- where there’s no ambulances available- in the Lakeland in 2014 alone.
Cyr plans to visit every ambulance service in the Lakeland and listen to their concerns and suggestions for improvements. Afterwards he plans to write a formal letter to provincial health minister Sarah Hoffman with a recommended solution.