New EMS data obtained from Alberta Health Services (AHS) highlights substantial improvement in reducing “red alerts” for the Calgary area, in which no ambulances are readily available, but whistleblowers say data is misleading and thousands of patients are still waiting. for too long.

From January 1 to September 30, Calgary recorded 35 red alerts totaling 43.9 minutes, which is a significant reduction from the 514 red alerts totaling 712.4 minutes for the same period in 2023.

But during the same period, 13,325 “amber alerts” were reported in the Calgary area, in which there are only one to three ambulances left in the city, for a total of 102 hours (more than four full days ).

This compares to 56,862 “amber alerts” in the first nine months of 2023, totaling 481 hours (more than 20 full days).

In 2024, a total of 7,816 people who called an ambulance during this period also had their call placed on “hold”, in which paramedics were not dispatched to them until EMS had more than trucks available on the road.

But the problem is not the lack of ambulances, but rather the lack of personnel.

In the first nine months of this year, 6,101 ambulances sat vacant in the Calgary zone due to the inability to staff them.

Since January, AHS has also moved ambulances from rural areas to Calgary 978 times. This left nine of 14 rural communities without an ambulance.

“It is obvious that AHS has changed the red alert criteria by putting more calls on hold and we believe they are doing this to avoid publicity of their relevance,” said Don Sharpe, retired paramedic in advanced care.

Sharpe has over 40 years of experience working in the Calgary area, stressing that “orange is the new red” and says he has never seen such a dire situation mishandled by AHS leadership .

He also points out that the Calgary area EMS system does not have surge capacity, meaning there are few resources available to handle the additional call volume demand that typically occurs at the approaching the winter season.

“The Christmas holidays are already very difficult for staff, there are more car accidents, more slips and falls, and more illnesses, so we are not sure EMS can survive.”

“We’re working at full capacity every day, and I’ve seen text messages from crews telling me they’re only at 60 to 70 percent staffed every day.”

According to internal documents obtained by CTV News on the Alberta Health Services (AHS) employee portal, there were already 72 paramedic positions vacant for Christmas Day and 95 vacancies for New Year’s Eve, as of November 13 .

AHS refutes allegations of misclassification of red alerts

AHS rejects allegations that it incorrectly classifies red alerts as amber alerts and notes that its 7,816 pending calls “do not imply” that there have been more than 35 red alerts.

“Waiting calls are separate from red alerts,” read an emailed statement from AHS.

“Holding status is assigned to low acuity calls when seven or fewer ambulances are available, prioritizing resources for high acuity cases. However, red alerts occur briefly when all ambulances are in use and are prioritized for urgent calls.

AHS also failed to acknowledge there were concerns about its ambulance staffing despite FOIP documents obtained by CTV News that show massive ambulance vacancies in the Calgary area.

“Of the 57,444 shifts scheduled in Calgary from January to October 2024, 89 per cent were staffed, with 51,343 shifts filled. AHS is focused on continually improving schedules based on demand while recruiting additional paramedics to fill remaining gaps,” the release read.

“For calendar year 2023, EMS hired 470 new staff members, including 362 paramedics, and added 296 more in 2024, including 205 paramedics. This resulted in a 19.4 percent increase in EMS staffing levels since December 2019.”

AHS says it is actively recruiting new paramedics while also focusing on “retaining its dedicated staff” through a multi-faceted marketing campaign targeting local, national and international audiences that launched from October 2023 to March 2024 .

“The campaign has already collected 905 responses from interested candidates and 2,152 unique applications,” AHS said.

“Where are these new recruits?

The big gap in the list is prompting some paramedics to report their employers.

A paramedic spoke anonymously to CTV News out of fear of workplace retaliation and said he was pushed to the extreme.

“They (AHS) kind of reversed the policy, and now all of a sudden they’re stacking calls or putting calls on hold before they raise a red alert,” the paramedic said.

“You’re just tired throughout your work.” You go to the hospital to clean up and there are already 10 calls waiting because crews are stuck at the hospital or don’t have the staff to staff the ambulances.

The paramedic was shocked by AHS’s statement that staffing has increased by 19.4 percent since December 2019.

“Where are these new recruits? What they hire is basically a leaky bucket because they lose more people than they actually hire. I don’t meet many new recruits. I can have unlimited overtime right now if I want,” they said.

“It’s very disheartening to see all the tweeting from upper management or upper management and the way they think we’re going to celebrate these achievements that they claim, that we’re experiencing while the reality on the street is not what they claim to demand.

AHS notes that it is aware of the pressures on hospital capacity and has since implemented what it calls “dedicated inter-facility transfer (IFT) resources” through contract partners to carry out hospital transfers. low acuity.

“This allows patients to return to their communities sooner and frees up AHS EMS ambulances for emergency calls. In Edmonton and Calgary, these additional resources are now handling 400 transfers per week, significantly relieving pressure on EMS,” AHS said in a statement.

“AHS also launched the EMS Return to Service initiative, designed to quickly return frontline EMS teams to the community while ensuring safe and efficient patient transfers. This initiative includes better coordination between frontline staff, emergency department supervisors, emergency department triage, site leadership, dispatch and hospital teams to improve access and patient flow.

“My father deserved an ambulance”

For Erin Graham, the delays tell a more personal story.

On New Year’s Eve 2021, she called an ambulance for her sick father, but it never arrived in time to help him.

“I really miss my dad. He was a farmer, a very simple guy who loved the simple things in life, but when he needed an ambulance, she wasn’t there,” she said.

“My dad deserved an ambulance.”

Photos of Douglas Graham, of Vulcan, Alberta, who died on New Year’s Eve 2021. (Courtesy Erin Graham)

Erin’s father, Douglas Graham of Vulcan, Alberta. died at the age of 76 following a battle with COVID-19.

“He obviously had a stroke because we couldn’t lift his feet in the car to take him to hospital and that’s when he fell outside. It was minus 28 degrees and we were told there was no ambulance in Vulcan County so we had to wait 45 minutes,” Graham said.

“After about 20 minutes of waiting, my father stopped breathing and he no longer had a heartbeat. It was a disaster and I just started doing CPR. Finally, I heard the ambulance arrive but my father had been dead for at least 20 minutes at that point. If they had come from Vulcan, they certainly could have saved him.

Graham will never know if medical attention arriving more quickly would have ultimately saved his life.

But she says she was told no ambulances were available in her community or area because they were all being sent elsewhere. The nearest ambulance was a 45-minute drive away when he called for help.