Some rural municipalities want the province to know ambulance response times and basic care in their communities are not meeting the mark.

Hundreds of members of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta gathered at the Edmonton Convention Centre on Tuesday to discuss advocacy and get an audience with Premier Danielle Smith. 

While rural infrastructure and unpaid oil and gas property taxes continue to be areas of focus for the smaller municipalities, Smith was hit with a number of questions about rural healthcare.

Jason Stelmaschuk, a councillor for the County of Vermilion River, said his parents moved from their farm as they started to age.

They chose the closest town, Vermillion, Alta., for its access to a hospital and ambulances. 

But Stelmaschuk said when his mother experienced signs of a stroke a couple of weeks ago, the nearest ambulance would have taken hours to arrive and the hospital didn’t have the facilities to deal with a potential stroke patient. 

“When you’re dealing with emergency situations such as a stroke, every second counts and it could be too late,” he said.

“It was a real eye opener to me. Our healthcare system is really going downhill.”

Stelmaschuk said the provincial government needs to hear stories like this to know that it is not doing a good job at providing basic care in rural areas. 

Premier Danielle Smith told the convention that it’s situations like this that pushed the government to dismantle Alberta Health Services.

“One of the things I would say about how AHS was running the system was it seemed like their attitude was: ‘Well, just go to Calgary or Edmonton to get your treatment,’” Smith said.

She said AHS is going to be focused on hospital delivery, and emergency medical services will be dispatched by a separate division — which could hire municipalities or private contractors to do the work.  

Last week, the province announced it would put forward a request for proposal for most ground ambulance services across Alberta this summer.

The government said it will be extending all current contracts until the RFP process wraps up in April 2027.

Smith said that is one part of the government’s effort to tailor healthcare services to local contexts. 

Stelmaschuk said that could be a good thing, but rural municipalities need to know more about the parameters.

“What gives me fear is: will this request for proposal be successful to the person who’s the lowest bidder? Anyone can give a lowball … which also comes with low service,” he said.

Justin Stevens, a councillor for Stettler County told the premier his municipality was interested in making a bid, but haven’t received clear communication from the province.

“We may or may not be able to bid on this tender. We have no idea what level of service will be a part of that — and it draws way more questions,” Stevens said.

Jones told reporters there’s lots of time for his office to meet with municipalities and answer questions.

“We of course want the best combination of service, while also being respectful to taxpayer dollars,” he said.

Jones said the government is also working to buy more ambulances and hire more paramedics to address capacity issues.

He said his ministry is also looking into interfacility transfers, which he says are taking up EMS capacity and negatively impacting rural hospitals in particular.

David Shepherd, the NDP critic for emergency services, said the government isn’t getting to the root of the problem, but instead creating more bureaucracy with constant reorganizing of the system.

“Nobody believes that this government tendering new contracts are suddenly going to improve ambulance services when they’ve utterly failed to do so in the last four years.”