— The province unveiled a three-year plan to build and update health care facilities in 15 rural and mid-size communities Wednesday, at a cost of $1.25-billion between now and 2013.
“We are acting now,” Infrastructure Minister Ray Danyluk said. “Our focus will be constructing buildings that work. Buildings that work well for patients, that work well for health professionals, and work well for communities.”
However, the cash promised did not include any projects for Edmonton or Calgary, Alberta’s two largest cities.
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky said funding promised to this point is the result of months of consultations with people across Alberta. His review of what Edmonton and Calgary need continues.
“This has been a very detailed, very thorough and a very comprehensive process,” Zwozdesky said.
“I came away with a lot of pertinent questions ... I know that we need some more doctors in some communities, I know that we need all sorts of facilities to continue with the pace which Alberta is growing right now. And along with that come the health care needs as well.”
He offered no specific date for announcing Edmonton and Calgary funding, prompting concern from critics who note release of the capital plan’s details is already more than three months behind schedule.
“I don’t want to see one played off against the other,” Edmonton-Centre Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman said of phase the capital plan announcements. “I particularly don’t want to see the metropolitan areas have to pay the price.”
In all, Wednesday’s announcement was supposed to be the next step in constructing and remodelling 22 new — and not so new — hospital and long-term care facilities across the province.
Zwozdesky estimated the capital plan, as currently laid out, will translate to as many as 500 acute care beds and 500 continuing care spaces.
The minister cautioned the 1,000-space boost was a “ballpark,” figure, however. “Some will be new new new, some are replacements, some of them are remodelling, some of them are expansions.”
The projects themselves — like work on the Fort Saskatchewan Health Centre or building the first phase of the Strathcona Hospital in Sherwood Park — would be familiar to most Albertans. Many of the projects now on the government’s to-do list have been announced before, then placed on the province’s back burner for years.
Zwozdesky and Danyluk argued many of the projects were put on hold during the recent economic slowdown.
“We feel confident today, all things being equal, this plan is achievable,” Zwozdesky said.
Pressed to assure people who have been waiting for years for their new hospitals — like Grande Prairie, where Premier Ed Stelmach said Tuesday a new, $520-million facility will get underway three years after it was first announced — the ministers said the capital plan laid out this week can be seen as a money, time and progress commitment.
“Many of these projects have been announced before, and several times,” said David Eggen, president of Friends of Medicare.
He suggested Albertans post the capital plan on their fridge doors to measure whether the government actually follows through. “The proof will be not just shovels in the ground, but health professionals inside, actually delivering health care.”
Blakeman and Eggen — who is expected to run for the NDP in Edmonton-Glenora during the next election — both charged the lengthy list of projects announced Wednesday are a blueprint for the government’s pre-election campaign.
Highlights:
$39-million in additional funding for the Fort Saskatchewan Health Centre, a replacement facility already under construction;
Funding in place for the $520-million Grande Prairie Hospital ($135.4 million of which is listed in the capital plan);
$31.7 million to replace the High Prairie Health Complex and the J.B. Wood Nursing Home (with potential for partnering with Northern Lakes College);
$10,2 million for construction of a new continuing care facility in Lloydminster;
$2.5 million to improve a new medical centre in Peace River;
$42.8 million to expand the Central Alberta Associate Cancer Centre in Red Deer, which includes building new radiation vaults to boost the province’s Lethbridge-Red Deer-Grande Prairie cancer treatment corridor;
$30.6 million to continue construction on the new Strathcona Hospital in Sherwood Park;
$21.6 million to continue expansion and redevelopment of emergency and ambulatory care departments at the Sturgeon Community Hospital in St. Albert;
$700,000 to replace the Good Samaritan Care Centre in Stony Plain.
More to come ...
taudette@thejournal.canwest.com
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Premier to review health board pay
Says 'different model' needed after executives earned $5.8 million last year
By Jason Fekete, Canwest News Service July 13, 2010 Ed Stelmach says his government will review the pay structure that rewards health superboard executives with bonuses.
"A different model is necessary," he said Monday in Calgary, but he won't reopen current contracts.
Opposition parties dismissed his pledge as empty rhetoric.
The government and Alberta Health Services have come under fire for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses paid last fiscal year to superboard brass, as the agency ran an $885-million deficit and failed to meet its targets for improving health-care access and quality.
"It's a time where we have to look at a different model to reimburse CEOs, especially of public authorities," Stelmach said at his annual Stampede breakfast.
"I've asked the minister just to review and come back to me personally to see how we can do this differently."
The premier's call for a review of health executive bonuses comes after AHS released financial statements for the 2009-10 fiscal year revealing executives received what some saw as hefty bonuses.
Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett was paid $149,000 in bonuses and other benefits.
He collected $744,000 in total compensation.
Duckett was paid $595,000 in base salary, as well as $139,000 in other cash benefits (including bonuses, overtime and vacation payouts), and $10,000 in non-cash benefits that included pension contributions.
He was eligible for a bonus of 25 per cent of his salary -- or $143,750 in direct bonus pay -- and eventually received $76,619, or 53 per cent of it, based on meeting about half of his set targets.
David Eggen with Friends of Medicare said health executives already receive a large base salary and should not have exorbitant bonuses written into their contracts. "There should be a different pay structure that doesn't include grotesque bonuses," Eggen said. "I hope the premier has some sense to act on this."
But while about 6,000 other government managers will forgo bonuses again this fiscal year, the premier said he won't renege on any contracts with health-care executives. "A contract is a contract. Whatever the agreement was, we're past this year."
All told, Duckett and more than a dozen other executives were paid $5.8 million in salary, bonuses and benefits in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Tory MLA Fred Horne, who's leading provincewide consultations on proposed changes to health legislation, said he's received an earful on Alberta Health Services compensation, even though it's not part of his committee's mandate.
Treasury Board president Lloyd Snelgrove cautioned against overreacting to the bonuses, stressing the province must pay fair wages to attract talent to the health system.
"If we want to have the best health-care system, and Albertans do, it costs us to have that. Good management costs money," Snelgrove said.
He also noted the province is reviewing the number of bosses in the public service, as it hopes to find the "appropriate management structure" and relax the hiring freeze on frontline staff.
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Says 'different model' needed after executives earned $5.8 million last year
By Jason Fekete, Canwest News Service July 13, 2010 Ed Stelmach says his government will review the pay structure that rewards health superboard executives with bonuses.
"A different model is necessary," he said Monday in Calgary, but he won't reopen current contracts.
Opposition parties dismissed his pledge as empty rhetoric.
The government and Alberta Health Services have come under fire for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses paid last fiscal year to superboard brass, as the agency ran an $885-million deficit and failed to meet its targets for improving health-care access and quality.
"It's a time where we have to look at a different model to reimburse CEOs, especially of public authorities," Stelmach said at his annual Stampede breakfast.
"I've asked the minister just to review and come back to me personally to see how we can do this differently."
The premier's call for a review of health executive bonuses comes after AHS released financial statements for the 2009-10 fiscal year revealing executives received what some saw as hefty bonuses.
Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett was paid $149,000 in bonuses and other benefits.
He collected $744,000 in total compensation.
Duckett was paid $595,000 in base salary, as well as $139,000 in other cash benefits (including bonuses, overtime and vacation payouts), and $10,000 in non-cash benefits that included pension contributions.
He was eligible for a bonus of 25 per cent of his salary -- or $143,750 in direct bonus pay -- and eventually received $76,619, or 53 per cent of it, based on meeting about half of his set targets.
David Eggen with Friends of Medicare said health executives already receive a large base salary and should not have exorbitant bonuses written into their contracts. "There should be a different pay structure that doesn't include grotesque bonuses," Eggen said. "I hope the premier has some sense to act on this."
But while about 6,000 other government managers will forgo bonuses again this fiscal year, the premier said he won't renege on any contracts with health-care executives. "A contract is a contract. Whatever the agreement was, we're past this year."
All told, Duckett and more than a dozen other executives were paid $5.8 million in salary, bonuses and benefits in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Tory MLA Fred Horne, who's leading provincewide consultations on proposed changes to health legislation, said he's received an earful on Alberta Health Services compensation, even though it's not part of his committee's mandate.
Treasury Board president Lloyd Snelgrove cautioned against overreacting to the bonuses, stressing the province must pay fair wages to attract talent to the health system.
"If we want to have the best health-care system, and Albertans do, it costs us to have that. Good management costs money," Snelgrove said.
He also noted the province is reviewing the number of bosses in the public service, as it hopes to find the "appropriate management structure" and relax the hiring freeze on frontline staff.
© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Calgary grappling with hospital bed shortage
The province has pledged to add 3,100 continuing care beds by 2013 to help ease the province 's acute care bed short age. But critics want to know how soon the changes will improve patient care in Calgary.
By Tamara Gignac, Calgary Herald July 4, 2010
StoryPhotos ( 2 )
It's the hospital visits that frighten her.
The 24-year-old suffers from Crohn's disease, a chronic bowel condition that causes excruciating abdominal pain and requires frequent medical care.
Last June, she arrived at Calgary's Foothills Hospital in agony. Staff parked Parrott in the only empty bed they could find: an unused stretcher in a stroke-unit corridor.
"I was in a backless gown in the middle of the hallway with just a thin blanket," recalls Parrott.
"None of the nurses knew what to do with me."
She lingered there for nearly three days, jostled by gurneys and the flow of noisy foot traffic. When she needed to use the bathroom, she hobbled through the ward in search of an empty toilet.
Sympathetic staff wrapped a makeshift vinyl curtain around her stretcher. But still she felt exposed and humiliated.
"(The doctors) lifted up my shirt and pulled my waistband down, right in the middle of the hallway as people's guests walked by."
Parrott's experience with hallway medicine is a poignant example of the province's overburdened health system and a bed crunch that plagues Calgary's adult hospitals.
The shortage of space has created a backlog in emergency departments, where patients frequently face long delays in clogged waiting areas for admission.
swant to knowhowsoon the change swill improve
Indeed, accessing a hospital bed is more difficult than ever, with city hospitals about 20 per cent over their capacity targets.
Critics argue the scarcity of hospital beds -- especially acute care spaces -- has reached a crisis as the city grapples with explosive population growth.
There were 1,897 beds in the system in 1994. A look at the number of acute care spaces in Calgary today shows a net gain of only 133 beds in 16 years -- despite a population increase of more than 327,000 people.
Meanwhile, emergency room capacity in the adult hospitals has remained unchanged in the last five years at 135 beds.
"It's draconian." says Mairi Matheson, a former Calgary Health Region board member ousted in 2008 after the Stelmach government created Alberta Health Services, the province's medical superboard based in Edmonton.
Matheson believes the city is still feeling the aftershocks of Ralph Klein-era cutbacks.
In the 1990s, health authorities shut down Calgary's Grace Hospital, Holy Cross and the old General Hospital, mothballing 1,500 beds in a bid to save the cash-strapped health authority more than $200 million.
"When the General was blown up, when the Grace was shut down and the Holy (Cross) was shut down, we lost hundreds and hundreds of acute care beds in one fell swoop. It was bungled pretty badly," said Matheson.
The province has vowed to bolster patient care and improve access for sick Albertans.
In January, as the Tories faced major backlash over health reforms, AHS was ordered to halt the planned closure of more than 300 acute care hospital beds in Calgary and Edmonton.
Last week, the superboard approved an $11.2-billion spending plan that includes opening more beds for seniors and tackling wait times in crowded emergency departments.
AHS -- flush with a sizable increase in government spending -- will spend $81 million to create 1,100 continuing care spaces across the province this year, with another 2,000 beds promised by 2013.
That will open much-needed acute care beds in hospitals and have a "significant" impact on overcrowding, said superboard CEO Stephen Duckett.
In a June 29 blog entry, Duckett acknowledged the capacity crunch in Alberta's health-care system.
"The number of acute beds (have) only marginally increased, not enough to keep pace with increasing demand," he wrote.
"The consequence is there for all to see: waiting times for elective procedures are still too long and our emergency departments are overcrowded with too many people waiting too long for care."
But the superboard's plan to open thousands of new continuing care spaces for seniors has sparked criticism from some groups, who argue the kind of beds being created do not provide the care frail seniors
patient
require.
"If those needs are not met, they'll just end up in a hospital," said Dave Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare. "Then you undermine the goal of this budget, which is to reduce wait times in acute care facilities."
More than 350,000 square metres of new acute care and clinical space is being developed in Calgary, according to AHS.
With sufficient operating dollars and staff, that could translate into 500 new acute care beds in the city over the next three to five years, the superboard said.
Some of that capacity will come in the new south Calgary hospital, the first phase of which is slated to open in 2012.
Additional beds are also planned for the city's three existing hospitals. That includes the possibility of reopening shuttered units at Rockyview General Hospital and Peter Lougheed Centre, that were closed due to cash restraints in recent years.
AHS officials say that a number of new initiatives are in place to help ease the strain in busy emergency departments.
Where appropriate, patients can be treated using geriatric chairs, freeing up stretchers for those who really need them. A new medical assessment unit at Rockyview will also reduce wait times, although the superboard can't say by how much.
Opening Garrison Green, a 200-bed facility for seniors in the city's southwest, will "have the greatest impact on the pressures facing Calgary hospitals and emergency departments," says AHS.
The expansion comes as AHS will see its share of this year's budget rise to $9 billion from $7.7 billion. The superboard will also receive a six per cent increase for each of the following two years and a 4.5 per cent increase in each of the final two years of the province's five-year funding plan.
United Nurses of Alberta president Heather Smith is optimistic the addition of new beds -- and the decision to lift a hiring freeze -- will improve Calgary's overburdened medical system.
Smith doesn't want to see sick people housed in crowded hospital corridors and sunrooms anymore. It's stressful for nurses as well as patients, she says.
"I'm hoping we'll see the elimination of overcapacity beds, which we've always felt were inappropriate and unsafe," says Smith.
"But until you start expanding your average acute care bed, you're not going to get relief in emergency departments. It's always been a matter of beds."
Leanne Parrott is counting on improvements in health-care delivery. She fears the next time Crohn's disease forces her to visit an emergency room, she'll end up in a stretcher in a supply closet.
Parrott has been told by a friend, a registered nurse, that it happens.
"It's a terrifying way to wake up. What if this happens to a frail old lady or a sick child?" she wonders.
tgignac@theherald.canwest.com
The province has pledged to add 3,100 continuing care beds by 2013 to help ease the province 's acute care bed short age. But critics want to know how soon the changes will improve patient care in Calgary.
By Tamara Gignac, Calgary Herald July 4, 2010
StoryPhotos ( 2 )
It's the hospital visits that frighten her.
The 24-year-old suffers from Crohn's disease, a chronic bowel condition that causes excruciating abdominal pain and requires frequent medical care.
Last June, she arrived at Calgary's Foothills Hospital in agony. Staff parked Parrott in the only empty bed they could find: an unused stretcher in a stroke-unit corridor.
"I was in a backless gown in the middle of the hallway with just a thin blanket," recalls Parrott.
"None of the nurses knew what to do with me."
She lingered there for nearly three days, jostled by gurneys and the flow of noisy foot traffic. When she needed to use the bathroom, she hobbled through the ward in search of an empty toilet.
Sympathetic staff wrapped a makeshift vinyl curtain around her stretcher. But still she felt exposed and humiliated.
"(The doctors) lifted up my shirt and pulled my waistband down, right in the middle of the hallway as people's guests walked by."
Parrott's experience with hallway medicine is a poignant example of the province's overburdened health system and a bed crunch that plagues Calgary's adult hospitals.
The shortage of space has created a backlog in emergency departments, where patients frequently face long delays in clogged waiting areas for admission.
swant to knowhowsoon the change swill improve
Indeed, accessing a hospital bed is more difficult than ever, with city hospitals about 20 per cent over their capacity targets.
Critics argue the scarcity of hospital beds -- especially acute care spaces -- has reached a crisis as the city grapples with explosive population growth.
There were 1,897 beds in the system in 1994. A look at the number of acute care spaces in Calgary today shows a net gain of only 133 beds in 16 years -- despite a population increase of more than 327,000 people.
Meanwhile, emergency room capacity in the adult hospitals has remained unchanged in the last five years at 135 beds.
"It's draconian." says Mairi Matheson, a former Calgary Health Region board member ousted in 2008 after the Stelmach government created Alberta Health Services, the province's medical superboard based in Edmonton.
Matheson believes the city is still feeling the aftershocks of Ralph Klein-era cutbacks.
In the 1990s, health authorities shut down Calgary's Grace Hospital, Holy Cross and the old General Hospital, mothballing 1,500 beds in a bid to save the cash-strapped health authority more than $200 million.
"When the General was blown up, when the Grace was shut down and the Holy (Cross) was shut down, we lost hundreds and hundreds of acute care beds in one fell swoop. It was bungled pretty badly," said Matheson.
The province has vowed to bolster patient care and improve access for sick Albertans.
In January, as the Tories faced major backlash over health reforms, AHS was ordered to halt the planned closure of more than 300 acute care hospital beds in Calgary and Edmonton.
Last week, the superboard approved an $11.2-billion spending plan that includes opening more beds for seniors and tackling wait times in crowded emergency departments.
AHS -- flush with a sizable increase in government spending -- will spend $81 million to create 1,100 continuing care spaces across the province this year, with another 2,000 beds promised by 2013.
That will open much-needed acute care beds in hospitals and have a "significant" impact on overcrowding, said superboard CEO Stephen Duckett.
In a June 29 blog entry, Duckett acknowledged the capacity crunch in Alberta's health-care system.
"The number of acute beds (have) only marginally increased, not enough to keep pace with increasing demand," he wrote.
"The consequence is there for all to see: waiting times for elective procedures are still too long and our emergency departments are overcrowded with too many people waiting too long for care."
But the superboard's plan to open thousands of new continuing care spaces for seniors has sparked criticism from some groups, who argue the kind of beds being created do not provide the care frail seniors
patient
require.
"If those needs are not met, they'll just end up in a hospital," said Dave Eggen, executive director of Friends of Medicare. "Then you undermine the goal of this budget, which is to reduce wait times in acute care facilities."
More than 350,000 square metres of new acute care and clinical space is being developed in Calgary, according to AHS.
With sufficient operating dollars and staff, that could translate into 500 new acute care beds in the city over the next three to five years, the superboard said.
Some of that capacity will come in the new south Calgary hospital, the first phase of which is slated to open in 2012.
Additional beds are also planned for the city's three existing hospitals. That includes the possibility of reopening shuttered units at Rockyview General Hospital and Peter Lougheed Centre, that were closed due to cash restraints in recent years.
AHS officials say that a number of new initiatives are in place to help ease the strain in busy emergency departments.
Where appropriate, patients can be treated using geriatric chairs, freeing up stretchers for those who really need them. A new medical assessment unit at Rockyview will also reduce wait times, although the superboard can't say by how much.
Opening Garrison Green, a 200-bed facility for seniors in the city's southwest, will "have the greatest impact on the pressures facing Calgary hospitals and emergency departments," says AHS.
The expansion comes as AHS will see its share of this year's budget rise to $9 billion from $7.7 billion. The superboard will also receive a six per cent increase for each of the following two years and a 4.5 per cent increase in each of the final two years of the province's five-year funding plan.
United Nurses of Alberta president Heather Smith is optimistic the addition of new beds -- and the decision to lift a hiring freeze -- will improve Calgary's overburdened medical system.
Smith doesn't want to see sick people housed in crowded hospital corridors and sunrooms anymore. It's stressful for nurses as well as patients, she says.
"I'm hoping we'll see the elimination of overcapacity beds, which we've always felt were inappropriate and unsafe," says Smith.
"But until you start expanding your average acute care bed, you're not going to get relief in emergency departments. It's always been a matter of beds."
Leanne Parrott is counting on improvements in health-care delivery. She fears the next time Crohn's disease forces her to visit an emergency room, she'll end up in a stretcher in a supply closet.
Parrott has been told by a friend, a registered nurse, that it happens.
"It's a terrifying way to wake up. What if this happens to a frail old lady or a sick child?" she wonders.
tgignac@theherald.canwest.com
Cost of EMS climbs $26M
Funding to go to labour increases and equipment
By Jen Gerson, Calgary Herald July 3, 2010 Comments (5)
StoryPhotos ( 2 )
More Images » An Alberta Health Services ambulance takes a call on May 15, 2010 in the MacKenzie Lake area. Recent reports state that response time has slowed down since the Alberta Health Services took over running the provincial ambulance service.Photograph by: Colleen De Neve, Calgary HeraldThe province's beleaguered ambulance service will get an additional $26 million to pay for its amalgamation, an expense critics hope will improve standards.
In its newest operating budget, Alberta Health Ser vices says EMS's budget will increase 8.1 per cent to cope with costs associated with the provincial takeover.
Announced as part of the $11.2-billion AHS budget, the increase in ambulance ser vice funding will go toward updating and standardizing equipment, offering contract p-roviders a cost-of living in crease and reconciling labour contracts that were negotiated before the amalgamation, according to the superboard.
The ambulance services budget is projected to be $353 million, up from $326 million in the 2009-2010 fiscal year. When the province initiated the takeover of EMS in 2008, it projected the annual cost to operate the service would be $217 million.
Jim Garland, the director of dispatch services with AHS, said the budget boost will go toward getting all of the ambulance services up to the same standard.
"In a transition, when you look at the math, the net effect is not just in real dollars," he said. "Under this model, the benefit for Albertans will be seen in the next 10 to 20 years."
Since the province took over ambulance service from municipalities a year ago, communities across Alberta have raised various concerns.
Statistics show paramedics in Calgary are less likely to attend life-threatening calls in the targeted time of under eight minutes. According to AHS data, ambulances made the target 65 per cent of the time last year. In 2008, when paramedics were managed by the City of Calgary, they met the target 78 per cent of the time.
Some smaller communities, meantime, have also raised concerns about response times as well as complained of problems with a new cen tralized dispatch system.
Dave Eggen, the director of Friends of Medicare, said the new AHS funds should provide the chance to improve training.
"Next year, they need to make sure that they're training to the highest standard as opposed to a race to the bottom," he said.
The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association is conducting a survey to see how well ambulance services have fared since the transition.
John McGowan, the CEO of the municipal association, said there have been some frustra tions. Regions use different radio systems, for example, and there have been communication difficulties.
"Alberta Health is working through those issues to get them sorted out," he said.
"One thing that happens with amalgamation, whether it's cities or organizations, is that the cream rises to the top, or the pay rises to the top," said Scott Hennig, the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
"Because people tend to make different amounts in different areas, when you try to make pay uniform across the body, it tends to go to the highest pay. Nobody takes a pay cut."
jgerson@theherald.canwest. com
Funding to go to labour increases and equipment
By Jen Gerson, Calgary Herald July 3, 2010 Comments (5)
StoryPhotos ( 2 )
More Images » An Alberta Health Services ambulance takes a call on May 15, 2010 in the MacKenzie Lake area. Recent reports state that response time has slowed down since the Alberta Health Services took over running the provincial ambulance service.Photograph by: Colleen De Neve, Calgary HeraldThe province's beleaguered ambulance service will get an additional $26 million to pay for its amalgamation, an expense critics hope will improve standards.
In its newest operating budget, Alberta Health Ser vices says EMS's budget will increase 8.1 per cent to cope with costs associated with the provincial takeover.
Announced as part of the $11.2-billion AHS budget, the increase in ambulance ser vice funding will go toward updating and standardizing equipment, offering contract p-roviders a cost-of living in crease and reconciling labour contracts that were negotiated before the amalgamation, according to the superboard.
The ambulance services budget is projected to be $353 million, up from $326 million in the 2009-2010 fiscal year. When the province initiated the takeover of EMS in 2008, it projected the annual cost to operate the service would be $217 million.
Jim Garland, the director of dispatch services with AHS, said the budget boost will go toward getting all of the ambulance services up to the same standard.
"In a transition, when you look at the math, the net effect is not just in real dollars," he said. "Under this model, the benefit for Albertans will be seen in the next 10 to 20 years."
Since the province took over ambulance service from municipalities a year ago, communities across Alberta have raised various concerns.
Statistics show paramedics in Calgary are less likely to attend life-threatening calls in the targeted time of under eight minutes. According to AHS data, ambulances made the target 65 per cent of the time last year. In 2008, when paramedics were managed by the City of Calgary, they met the target 78 per cent of the time.
Some smaller communities, meantime, have also raised concerns about response times as well as complained of problems with a new cen tralized dispatch system.
Dave Eggen, the director of Friends of Medicare, said the new AHS funds should provide the chance to improve training.
"Next year, they need to make sure that they're training to the highest standard as opposed to a race to the bottom," he said.
The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association is conducting a survey to see how well ambulance services have fared since the transition.
John McGowan, the CEO of the municipal association, said there have been some frustra tions. Regions use different radio systems, for example, and there have been communication difficulties.
"Alberta Health is working through those issues to get them sorted out," he said.
"One thing that happens with amalgamation, whether it's cities or organizations, is that the cream rises to the top, or the pay rises to the top," said Scott Hennig, the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
"Because people tend to make different amounts in different areas, when you try to make pay uniform across the body, it tends to go to the highest pay. Nobody takes a pay cut."
jgerson@theherald.canwest. com
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