I received this email from my sister today (Editor's note: see below), February 15th. As we personally know of people from this area who drive the highway to Fort McMurray for work each week, we too are very concerned about the changes to the Medevac service for this area. We are also very upset to learn that at the same time as withdrawal from the Edmonton Municipal is planned in order to no doubt cut costs, a new hangar at the EM will be constructed for cabinet ministers and the Premier's planes. This is outrageous in the true sense of the word.
Please use your voice, and encourage all citizens to use theirs to protest this to the Premier, to all MLA's, and to the head of AB Health Services. This is a conversation with our Premier that must not be postponed.
Kathy Day
Twin Butte, AB
Editor's note: This is the email to which Kathy Day refers to:
Subject: Do you know anyone who drives to Fort McMurray?
More Doctors Speak Out
Do you know anyone who drives Highways 63 and 881 between Fort McMurray and Edmonton? It’s 400 km of the most dangerous highways in Alberta. If you are in an accident anywhere between mile-marker 100 km and 300 km, you are going to be taken to the Lac La Biche hospital.
Dr. Richard Birkill works in the emergency room at that hospital. He is also the Community Medical Director for Lac La Biche. Here is what he wants you to know about the proposed medevac changes:
I am the Community Medical Director for the Lac La Biche Hospital.
Working on the front-lines in our emergency room, I know how important our fixed-wing medevac services are to saving lives within our community and for those driving our dangerous highways 63 and 881. At times I have to fly five critical patients out on one shift.
I am writing to correct Alberta Health Service's claims about the government's decision to relocate medevac services from the Edmonton City Centre Airport out to the International Airport in Leduc effective March 15th.
We currently send 120 patients a year to the Royal Alex and UofA hospitals by fixed-wing air ambulance. We do not send patients for routine tests by air; we are close enough that they can drive. Medevac is used to save lives and improve health outcomes for critical patients needing timely specialized care at Edmonton's tertiary hospitals.
Our door-to-door time to the Royal Alex is currently 38min. If the government forces the medevac planes to land out in Leduc instead of in downtown Edmonton, it will almost triple the time it takes to get critical patients to the trauma unit, the cardiac cath lab, or obstetric specialists at the Royal Alex. (A 45 min flight, 12 min taxi along the runway apron, 20min patient change over and then 45min drive up to the Alex, if there is no traffic.)
The government tries to create the impression that the relocation will improve medevac because the government is building a new 6-bed holding area in the hangar at the International Airport. The truth is that this holding area is being built to cope with the tremendous bottle neck of patients that will be produced at the International. We currently have 12 air ambulances, and each plane is paired with its own ground ambulance based at the City Centre Airport. The air medical crew that looks after you in the plane, jumps into their ground ambulance and takes you to the nearby hospital. Right now, if 5 or more air ambulances land at the same time at the City Centre, there is a waiting ambulance for each of them to be driven the 5 min over to the Royal Alex.
Under the government's flawed relocation plan, the International will have 4 ambulances during the day and 2 at night for transfers. It is not uncommon for several flights to be landing during the day and anyone left behind at the International can expect to wait 2 hours before an ambulance returns. And the government’s idea of using STARS as a shuttle from the international to the downtown hospitals suffers from the same fatal flaw. STARS has its own missions to fly and can’t fly in bad weather, which means more critical patients left behind waiting.
There is nothing that will be done for patients in the holding area at this point, which we did not already do in Lac La Biche Hospital in the first place. None of the specialized services which our patients will need to save their lives will be available at the international airport.
Consider the 120 patients from Lac La Biche. The new air ambulance service model will become the worst in the country, regardless of how pretty the holding facilities are. Only time will save lives. We cannot accept the closure of city centre airport to our life-saving medevac flights. Lives will be lost. The provincial government has the power and the obligation to stop this.
Dr. Richard Birkill
Community Medical Director for Lac La Biche
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Fuel Services
Some of you have shared with us recent emails you have been receiving from MLAs which contain the following statement:
“The Edmonton Airport Authority has not even guaranteed the continuation of fuel service at the City Centre, so we had to move the medevac planes now.”
First, it is not the Edmonton Airport Authority that supplies fuel—nor has it ever.
But we contacted the largest aviation fuel supply service company at the Edmonton City Centre Airport that does supply the fuel: McEwen’s Aviation Services. You can read the letter we received from the owner, Bob McEwen—see attached.
McEwen’s has no plans to stop fuel services. Mr. McEwen says that his fleet of on-site fuel service trucks and aviation services business continues to operate business as usual and he plans to keep on operating.
Bob McEwen asked this of us: “Please share this information with whoever is spreading the false rumors about the fuel services being discontinued at the Edmonton City Centre Airport”.
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New Government Hangar for Premier’s and Ministers’ Planes
As an update, on Friday we confirmed that the new government hangar at the International airport which is going to be built for the Premier’s and the Ministers’ planes will not actually be ready until late 2014 or possibly 2015. The government just sent out the RFQ to select an architect. It looks like the new hangar will cost around $7.5 Million. (There is nothing wrong with the current hangar the City Centre Airport. It’s paid for too.)
So, the government planes carrying our elected provincial officials will be having the convenience of landing at the Edmonton City Centre Airport, but rural and northern Albertans needing urgent health care at the Royal Alex and UofA hospitals can’t? This is not right.
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More Public Information Meetings:
There are many areas of the province that do not know about the relocation plan for medevac services.
We will be holding public information meetings in the coming weeks as follows:
- Tuesday, February 26, 7:30 pm, St. Paul
- Thursday February 28, 7:30 pm, Slave Lake
- Tuesday, March 5, 7:30 pm, Cold Lake
- Thursday, March 7, 7:30 pm, Hinton
- Monday, March 11, 7:30 pm, Lloydminster
More details will be available soon.
If you know someone from these areas, let them know about the meetings.
Thank you.
Dr. Kerry Pawluski
President
www.SaveOurMedevac.ca
Kudos Kathy for expanding the community around us and letting others know of your concerns and the health care travesty that our current Tory government is allowing to happen at the expense of hard working Albertans. Hopefully other Albertans will see as you have what is happening with our timely health care and speak out as well. Like one rock dropped in a pond causing numerous ripples that will continue to expand in concentric rings until all have heard the message being sent.
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