The Save Our Medevac Society (SOS) stepped up its lobby Monday to pressure the provincial government to delay its planned rerouting of fixed-wing medevac aircraft from Edmonton's City Centre Airport to the International Airport as of March 15.
In Monday's edition of the Edmonton Journal, a group of 36 doctors from across northern Alberta published a full-page open letter to Albertans with the message that the government plan is not conducive to healthy outcomes for northern Alberta emergency patients.
“For the critically ill and injured people of the north, the extra transport time will result in needless deaths and disability,” states the letter on page A16. “The Alberta Government needs to suspend the medevac relocation until these concerns are addressed and do what is best for our patients.”
In a statement to the media Sunday night, Dr. Kerry Pawluski, an Edmonton medical doctor and orthopedic hospitalist at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, and president of SOS, reiterated his stand against the government's plan.
“The government has not been listening to our warnings about the serious medical consequences to critically ill patients. To save lives doctors need timely and effective medevac services to get our patients to trauma, heart, obstetric and other specialists at the Alex and U of A hospitals,” said Pawluski.
Pawluski was in St. Paul last Tuesday night along with other representatives of SOS for a public information session where he expressed concern the Alberta Government is rushing its decision on the relocation of medevac planes and that safer options have been overlooked.
“Being so far away from specialty care complicates matters,” he told the more than 100 people in attendance at the St. Paul Rec. Centre. He said existing emergency medevac transport times from northern Alberta to tertiary care centres in Edmonton at the Royal Alex and U of A hospitals have placed Alberta at the head of the pack in Canada as far as response times go. However, the move to the International Airport will result in increased transfer times, as ground ambulance will then have to transport patients into the city hospitals.
“We are going to go from the best to the worst,” Pawluski said. “You can be sure there will be increased suffering and death with that extra time.”
St. Albert lawyer Keith Wilson, legal counsel to SOS, said at the St. Paul meeting that it is important to note the relocation of medevac services away from the City Centre Airport is a provincial government issue.
“Who is responsible for timely access to health care? Alberta Government,” Wilson said. “It is the province that's responsible for this and it's the province that made the relocation decision. The airport is still open.”
Describing the City Centre Airport runway as “the most important mile of pavement for you and your loved ones to tertiary care when they are dying,” Wilson said the government's move is premature. He said there is no firm closure date for the City Centre Airport runway and the city has not provided notice of a date to the government that the medevac planes must be rerouted.
“What we've been saying is this decision isn't being forced by the city,” Wilson said. “This decision to relocate is happening solely by the Alberta Government and if they want to say ‘you know what maybe something is wrong here and the planes should still be able to land on the sixteenth of March' they don't have to pass a law, they don't have to bring the Legislature into session, they can make the decision to undo it just as they made the decision to do it. They can announce it tomorrow. Be clear in your mind that the government has that ability.”
During a question and answer session several members of the audience expressed concerns with the transfer of medevac flights away from the city centre.
“I don't think the city thinks about how much we support the city. We do bring in a significant amount of money to the city,” Darlene Sereda, an Elk Point area resident, said.
St. Paul resident Paul Emile Boisvert described the planned move as “a gong show” and encouraged the audience to get pro-active and contact government representatives with their concerns.
Earlier in evening, the provincial government held a teleconference town hall meeting on the medevac issue.
