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 Edmontonians driving our dangerous highways. At times I have to fly five critical patients out on one shift.
I am writing to correct Alberta Health Service's letter 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 driven the 5 min over to the Royal Alex.
Under the government's flawed relocation plan, the International will have 2 ambulances during the day and 1 at night for transfers. If 3 flights land-which is not uncommon-somebody will be left behind at the International and can expect to wait 2 hours before the ambulance returns.
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
