Councillors pose questions to Taber-Warner MLA Hunter

By Kenyon Stronski
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
reporter@tabertimes.com

While Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter stood before town council on Feb. 28, he took the time to answer various questions that arose.

“You mentioned at the beginning of your presentation that health is critical in the budget and when I look through the new budget, I do see the considerable dollars spent to make it better, but if I may, I want to address the ambulance part of the Alberta Health Services. We had a joint meeting with other councils in the area and there were not many answers except ‘we’re working on it,’” asked Coun. Garth Bekkering.

“There’s been a major increase in call volume and they haven’t been able to identify to us why that is and it may be because of COVID,” began Hunter. “AHS has actually increased the amount of EMTs by 200, but there’s a bunch of problems that we have and number one is we have dispatching that has gone centralized and I think I was in front of the last council saying to give it a chance, but I have to say that the data shows its not working. We’ve struck a committee that will be addressing these issues and trying to come up with solutions now, there’s a lot on the table now. Another thing is if they’re dispatched to an area they may be stuck there. They could be dispatched to Lethbridge and be stuck there all day, not where they should be and the other way is when they get to hospitals sometimes they have to wait 14, 15, 16 hours to transfer that patient to ICU and that’s unacceptable. They’ll be stuck there because they have a responsibility for that handoff, so they get stuck there and the left arm doesn’t know what the right arm is doing and it’s just not working. I think that the new minister of health is actually very willing to address these issues as when I’ve talked with him I can tell you he has been very willing to listen to hear and not just have his ideas.”