Ever wonder what happens when you combine epic leadership fails, a dash of corporate gaslighting, and enough financial mismanagement to make your head spin? You get Strike Teams. Sounds cool, right? Like something out of a summer action blockbuster. But alas, it’s not Vin Diesel saving the day; it’s AHS EMS dragging staff across the province on their days off to plug the holes in their sinking ship. Spoiler alert: the price tag for this brilliant idea? Almost a million bucks.
But hey, it gets better. Or worse. Depends on your threshold for absurdity. What you’re about to read is a rollercoaster of shutdown stats, vacancy rates, and EMS crews treated like overworked Uber drivers. Oh, and for the cherry on top? We’ve got the mind-blowing tale of Grande Prairie’s “stabilized staffing levels” (spoiler: they’re not) and why paramedics keep bailing for fire departments where respect isn’t just a buzzword.
Before you dive into this treasure trove of facts, figures, and frustration, let’s talk about how we keep the lights on over here. Filing FOIP requests and digging into the AHS house of cards isn’t cheap. If you like what we’re doing—or just want to see AHS leadership squirm a little - consider dropping a few bucks in our GiveSendGo. Every dollar helps us shine a brighter spotlight on this circus.
Now, grab a coffee (or something stronger) and get ready to laugh, cry, and question reality. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. North Zone? It's your turn!🚑
When emails started pouring in from all over Alberta, one phrase from the North Zone caught our attention: “Strike Teams.” Sounds impressive, right? Naturally, we had to dig in. Imagine our disappointment when we discovered it was just an AHS EMS fancy term for dragging staff from other zones to cover North Zone shifts—on their days off. Now imagine our second-hand embarrassment when we learned this brilliant idea cost nearly a million bucks to cover 747 shifts, that might seem impressive, but consider that in the last two years there has been over 28000 shifts that have been dropped from the schedule that makes up 2% of the coverage required. Brilliant use of tax payer funds.
The best analogy? Picture being able to wreck your car on purpose and send the repair bill to taxpayers. That’s essentially what happened here.
But how did we even get to this point of such epic financial mismanagement? For years, AHS let the North Zone become a puppy mill—a place where new grads got their start, only to leave at the first chance. Instead of creating a healthy work culture, toxic leadership ran rampant. Staff were treated as disposable, with management banking on the endless lineup of new recruits eager to burn out next.
Then there’s the work itself—or rather, the mind-numbing slog of transfers. We’ve ranted about this before: turning ambulances into glorified taxis for CT scans that could’ve been handled by someone’s mom in a minivan. Unsurprisingly, the same transfer disaster haunts the North Zone, sucking any remaining joy out of the job. After talking to current and former Paramedics there, it’s clear that this problem is alive and well. Naturally, we had to dive deeper into the transfer mess.
Thats when we had the pleasure of speaking with two North Zone Paramedics who gave us the dirt on what is going on up there. This is what the first one had to say:
The deployment managers decide when we take transfers, get sent for relocations, etc. Theres been multiple times where the DMs put us in unnecessary danger by having a crew take a NET transfer to the city at night, in poor weather conditions, leaving our community short a truck or often completely uncovered. This happens daily.
For those that do not know, NET stands for non-emergent transfer. Learning this felt bad, but it gets worse, but doesn't it always? It should be a catch phrase.
On one instance my partner and I were the only unit in our community, and we got sent to take a pre-booked appointment to the city. We joked that hopefully nothing happens while we're gone, but sure enough an 18 year went into cardiac arrest and his parents had to wait 45 minutes for the next closest unit to respond, while we literally drove right by the house with our NET transfer. And now whenever we try to suggest anything with respect to resource utilization we are told "resource management is not our responsibility".
Then there was this story that we were told
There is a local who goes to the U of A regularly. Instead of getting himself to the hospital he gets admitted to the hospital here so that he can get an Ambulance to move him to the airport, another Ambulance to wait for him in Edmonton to take him to his procedure and then the whole process repeats itself. As soon as he gets back to the hospital here he gets discharged home till next time. It’s obvious abuse of the EMS system.
These North Zone stories perfectly illustrate how to wreck an EMS system, burn out its paramedics, and pretend everything’s fine. Deployment managers prioritize non-emergent transfers over actual emergencies—because, hey, what are the odds of something serious happening? Meanwhile, an 18-year-old in cardiac arrest waited 45 minutes for help while the only local ambulance drove past his house with a pre-booked patient. Why? Because “resource management” apparently isn’t the responsibility of those managing resources.
Then there’s the man that needs to use EMS as his private chauffeur to support his care, and “leadership” does nothing because developing a better solution is kinda complicated and they haven’t had a committee on that yet. The result? A community left dangerously unprotected. This isn’t just bad management—it’s negligence in a policy-shaped costume. If only someone would write a policy to prevent this… Oh right, they did! AHS EMS “leadership” is just okay ignoring that one.
Maybe it's because there wasn't any reporting on the matter so the public wouldn't know about their poor tutelage of the EMS system. Oh wait... https://globalnews.ca/news/9365863/alberta-shuttles-transport-patients-ems-ambulance-response/
Digging into the avalanche of transfers burying North Zone crews could fill its own blog post, but let’s keep it simple. Just look at Grande Prairie and its out-of-town IFT (Inter-Facility Transfer) events. On average, EMS crews there are sent out of their community 77 times per month. Last year, that number hit a staggering 166 in a single month.
And then there’s this gem from a Paramedic in another North Zone town (name withheld to protect them from AHS’s retribution squad):
“If our ambulances are assembled, there’s a guarantee we’re doing a green tag transfer.”
Translation: kiss your Emergency Coverage goodbye, because nothing screams prepared for emergencies like draining a community’s resources for non-urgent taxi runs. Whoever dreamed up this Transfer Circus clearly suffers from a chronic case of imagination deficiency. To really grasp the brilliance of this decision-making, check out the first column: it shows how often Grande Prairie ambulances are pulled away for emergencies outside their community. Sure, AHS will call it a win for the "borderless system," but let’s be real—it’s just another symptom of a system collapsing under its own weight.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could stop here with the bad news? Sadly, there’s more. Much more. We crunched the numbers from the past two years (we didn’t even bother going further back—our sanity has limits) and uncovered the grim reality that led to the creation of Strike Teams: VACANCIES.
In AHS North Zone’s four districts—Grande Prairie, Mackenzie, Peace River, and Slave Lake—paramedic shortages caused 367 FOIP pages of ambulance shutdowns in just two years. That’s when there weren’t enough paramedics to even assemble a crew.
Here’s the breakdown:
Grande Prairie District: 4,825 shutdowns (Grande Prairie, Valleyview, Beaverlodge, Grande Cache, Fox Creek, Spirit River)
Mackenzie District: 1,020 shutdowns (Rainbow Lake, Zama City, La Crete, Fort Vermilion)
Peace River District: 4,363 shutdowns (Peace River, McLennan, Worsley, Manning, Fairview)
Slave Lake District: 4,373 shutdowns (Slave Lake, High Prairie, Wabasca, Swan Lake, Red Earth)
That’s over 14,000 ambulances taken out of service in two years, totalling a staggering 191,985 hours lost—the equivalent of nearly 8,000 days or just shy of 22 years. Yes, TWENTY TWO YEARS.
So…what happened?
Years of mismanaging EMS resources were bound to backfire, and shocker—AHS EMS "Leadership" is finally feeling the heat. If they’d paid attention to the North Zone earlier, they might’ve spotted the warning signs before the problems exploded province-wide. Funny how it always starts there, isn’t it?
But instead of admitting the system is broken and fixing it properly, they stuck to their signature move: slap on a Band-Aid, call it damage control and hope for a miracle. Use ‘Jazz Hands’ and preach the supremacy of a 'borderless system'. The result? A disaster that crosses all borders.
In the North Zone—like everywhere else—the problem for EMS isn’t just people throwing in the towel. Since 2020, only 32 paramedics have outright said, "I’m done," with another 4 retiring. The equivalent of 18 Ambulances. Not great, but hey, it could be worse… right?
But, as with everywhere else, there’s another issue haunting EMS: full-time and part-time staff stepping down to casual positions. Why? Take your pick: better jobs with decent treatment, waiting out the chaos, or just wanting control over when and where they work. The bottom line? Since 2020, the North Zone has lost 107 full-time Paramedics—enough to staff 53 ambulances. Pair that with the other 32 who left and that represents a loss of 71 Ambulances.
Of course, we’d love to say that’s the end of the bad news, but this is AHS EMS ‘leadership’ we’re talking about—Masters of burning people out. So here’s the next question: what about staff who get hurt, physically or mentally?
In the last two years, the North Zone saw 172 time-loss WCB injuries, equal to pulling 86 ambulances off the road—50 of those from Grande Prairie alone. Impressive, right?
So, who’s stepping in to replace all these Paramedics? We dug into that too, and “concerning” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Casual hires are through the roof, raising the question: are they counting full-time and part-time resignations as "new" casual hires? Either way, as the system has learnt time and time again, casuals are great in a pinch but are only a temporary stop gap. Casuals are not by any means a viable solution but that seems to be all they can entice into the system, with good candidates briefly considering Full-Time positions before giving them a hard ‘NO’.
Actual full-time and part-time replacements are scarce and staffing is being padded with Emergency Medical Responders (EMRs). Let’s be clear—we’re not knocking EMRs or their potential, but this wasn’t always the norm. Make no mistake: relying on EMRs represents a degradation of service—something AHS promised wouldn’t happen when they took over EMS provincially.
Speaking of service degradation, you’d have better luck staying dry in a boat full of holes than trusting an AHS EMS promise.
Now, let’s talk about the most glaring degradation of service, downgrades of ALS to BLS. A full North Zone breakdown will need its own post but let’s zero in on Grande Prairie for now. Over the past 22 months, they’ve averaged 83 ALS-to-BLS downgrades per month, with a whopping 119 in September 2024 alone. Impressive, right? Just not in a good way.
Even worse is when Grande Prairie’s EMS coverage gets so bad that ambulances from other communities are forced to relocate there. The kicker? These ambulances often come from towns with one—maybe two—units to begin with.
This is the tragic reality of AHS’s beloved "borderless system," a setup they’re oddly proud of despite its epic failure for both big cities and small towns. Grande Prairie alone has averaged 45 relocation requests per month over the past 22 months, peaking at a staggering 93 in June 2023. Bravo AHS, Bravo! Depleting entire communities of their Ambulances. Truly groundbreaking work in that 'borderless system' they love so much.
What's worse than stripping entire communities of their ambulances? Dishonesty, gaslighting, and the Olympic-level truth-bending we’ve come to expect from EMS ‘leadership’. Case in point: a Grande Prairie Paramedic tipped us off to this article and it’s a doozy. Here’s the gist:
Grande Prairie City Council wants provincial funding for a "Fire-Paramedic Response Unit," basically a firefighter and an Advanced Care Paramedic in an SUV to handle emergencies while waiting for EMS (which is busy playing musical chairs across the zone as previously demonstrated). It’s a practical solution to a chronic problem—EMS delays—and wouldn’t ding local taxpayers. The fire chief says it could be running in a year, assuming the province coughs up the cash. It's a solution that has the potential to at least extend some EMS autonomy back to the municipality.
Sounds promising, right? Except, according to this same Paramedic, their supervisors claim the fire department’s proposal relies on “old data” and that “staffing has stabilized”. Really… Stabilized? We read that claim and said, "Let’s investigate”, because something smells like last month's leftovers. Here’s what we uncovered about Grande Prairie’s so-called "stabilized" staffing levels:
That was a lot of data, so here’s the TL;DR: Grande Prairie’s average EMS vacancy rate over the past 23 months is a whopping 20.96%. And it’s getting worse. Recent months clocked in at 26.23%, 29.51%, 29.51% again, and 27.87%. If that’s what "leadership" is calling “stable staffing” we’d hate to see their definition of unstable.
But wait, it gets worse. The outlying communities? Their vacancy rates make Grande Prairie’s look like a dream, as reflected in North Zone’s epic shutdown lists. Now, let’s talk about the Fire Department’s proposed Paramedic program. Where will they find staff? Spoiler alert: probably plenty of AHS Paramedics who, like clockwork, ditch EMS for fire departments whenever there is an announcement that FD is hiring. Moving to greener pastures, where they’re treated with basic respect. Who could’ve seen that coming? Oh right, EVERYONE.
So, what have we learned? That AHS EMS could turn a simple Band-Aid solution into a full-blown circus act, complete with flaming rings of dysfunction and a disappearing act for taxpayer dollars. Strike Teams? More like “Take One For the Team” Teams. Vacancies? Through the roof. Transfers? Out of control. Paramedics? Jumping ship faster than you can say, “Respect and work-life balance.”
And let’s not forget the pièce de résistance: Grande Prairie’s “stabilized staffing levels.” Northern Alberta is an EMS Staffing Earthquake Zone. While North Zone continues to shake, rattle and roll, management still maintains the 'borderless system' is the shizzle. Price Waterhouse Cooper says so. Bravo, truly.
Now here’s the kicker: this level of whoopsie-daisy governance isn’t going to stop anytime soon. With your help we’ll keep digging and loudly calling out this nonsense until someone decides to fix it. Head over to our GiveSendGo and toss in a few bucks—because FOIP requests, advocating for change and keeping AHS EMS on their toes isn’t free. Every donation helps us make their lives as uncomfortable as they’ve made yours.
So thanks for sticking around for this wild ride. When it comes to AHS EMS leadership the hits just keep on coming. Buckle up, Alberta—it might be a long journey.
Comments