When the Town of Barrhead hands over control of its ambulance system to Alberta Health Services on April 1, 2012, area residents will not see any change in the level of service they have become accustomed to, says mayor Brian Schulz.
“We will still have the same services that we have today,” he said, adding that’s a promise AHS made when it agreed to take over providing ambulance coverage in the area.
The process for the town to divest itself of the ambulance service started in August 2011 when the town sent a letter to AHS informing the province that the town would be ending its contract to provide ambulance service effective April 1, 2012.
The move fits into AHS’s plans, Schulz said, which was for the province to take over all ambulance contracts across Alberta.
Furthermore, the town’s decision came down to costs, he added. The cost of providing the service to the community was increasing, and AHS wasn’t keeping pace with covering that cost.
“They weren’t allowing for communities of our size any extra for the extra hours,” Schulz said.
It was getting to the point where to provide the level of service the town was happy with, it was going to cost more than in other communities, and the town did not like that and acted accordingly.
“Council decided that health services is something that everybody pays for through their taxes, and one community shouldn’t pay more than another community for the same service,” Schulz said.
Thus, the town said that if AHS did not “ante up” so taxpayers would not have to pay more, the town would turn over the ambulance service to the province, he said.
The changeover will mean an end to the town owning its own ambulances, which was a move Schulz said was made with an eye to providing top-notch service to the community.
“The reason we had bought the ambulances ourselves was we wanted to maintain a high quality of service in our area, which we believe we have,” he said. “We are thankful we own our own ambulances and that we have a tremendous manager in Trevor Trefanenko who has done a great job in running our ambulances.”
According to Trefanenko, the only change area residents should expect to see is in the paramedics’ uniform.
“(The changeover) shouldn’t change the way the service level is,” he said. “It will all be operated the same, with just a different ambulance patch on their shoulders.”
With the town preparing to handover the ambulance service, Trefanenko said he is looking back at the time he spent working to bring high-quality emergency medical assistance to Barrhead and the surrounding communities.
“I’ve very much enjoyed working for the Town of Barrhead and doing the best safety and treatment as an ambulance service that we could provide,” he said. “I feel honoured to have spent over 20 years in the Barr-head area helping out the public, and it’s sad for me to see it come to an end.”
