Major Alberta county opts to pay more to keep ambulance service after province reduces compensation rate

An Alberta Health Services ambulance is shown. (AHS)

The council for a major county adjacent to Edmonton has decided to keep its ambulance service the way it is after being forced to choose between keeping it but accepting less funding or turning it over to the province.

Strathcona County, population 107,345 last year, is one of seven municipalities in Alberta that uses the integrated model, along with Lethbridge, Red Deer, Leduc, Spruce Grove, St. Albert and Wood Buffalo.

The county east of Edmonton, which includes Sherwood Park, has provided ambulance service to its residents since 2009 under contract with the province.

The municipalities were faced with a decision to keep delivering it as-is as the provincial Emergency Health Services (EHS) told them in mid-March that it will introduce a new, lower contract rate after the current contract is up at the end of September. The current contract with these municipalities covers most direct costs with ambulance service delivery, including staffing, but does not fully cover indirect costs, according to a report by Strathcona County administration delivered on Tuesday to council.

Councillors voted 5-4 to accept the new contract from EHS and keep its current service the same but incur more cost. Accepting the contract and maintaining their community response units (CRUs) will cost the county $2.3 million in the 2027 budget, with a potential tax increase of 0.73 per cent.

Leduc and Spruce Grove have already declined the new deal.

CRUs respond to urgent medical and fire rescue calls. They are exclusive to the county, while the ground ambulances can be dispatched outside county lines.

“For me, this is about public safety. This is about protecting a system that works,” Coun. Robert Parks said before voting in favour of accepting the contract. “It is about respecting the residents, who have overwhelmingly told us that they value this service. It is about standing up for the staff who have stood up for us, and it’s about refusing to let a misguided provincial funding decision make our community potentially less safe.”

Coun. Glen Lawrence voted against the contract – preferring a different option that would see the county decline it but retain funding CRUs – but said in the lead-up to the vote that he “has a real problem with this downloading (from the province) that’s going on.”

“To me, this is the thin edge of the wedge, then it starts to creep and creep and creep, and next thing you know, we’re paying for everything through the municipal tax dollar,” he said.

“I don’t disagree that Option 1 (to accept the contract, keep services as it is), everything’s fantastic, but I don’t want to see us pulled into that trap.”

Jason Chance, the county’s deputy chief administrative officer, told council on Tuesday that the gap between the current costs and the “much lower” rate being offered by EHS “is for staff compensation.”

“The correspondence received by the county explicitly states that if we wish to maintain this agreement, the county would have to agree to cover additional costs over and above that EHS benchmark,” he said.

The current contract includes four ambulances and two CRUs, with provincial contract funding for the CRUs covering a small percentage of operating expenses. It excludes staffing costs.

Chance told council that 87 per cent of calls Strathcona County’s ground ambulances respond to are medical calls, 28 per cent of them come from outside its limits, mostly from Edmonton.

The province asked the municipalities to signal whether they wanted to accept the new rate or not by the end of May.

Opting to eliminate its integrated fire-ambulance service would’ve affected dozens of full-time jobs. Right now, 47 full-time workers with Strathcona County Emergency Services are associated with the ground ambulances, with another 16 supporting the CRUs.

Ambulance services across Alberta are provided through a combination of provincial direct delivery and contracted providers, which includes private and municipal contractors.

And while Alberta’s minister of hospitals says EHS’s new model would provide the same quality of services, Strathcona County administrators say they have heard very few details on the plan, such as how many paramedics would be employed or what the price cap would be.