A presentation was brought forth to Lacombe Council on Monday evening concerning the Lacombe response times from Emergency Medical Services in life threatening events.

Concerned citizens are saying it takes too long to get care in these important situations.

Lyle Mckellar is the Executive Director for EMS in the Central Zone; he was present to bring forward the facts to council members.

He says in 2009 there was a decision made by the government to put the direction of Emergency Medical Services under Alberta Health Services.  

From a report provided by AHS, there were 2,299 emergency events in Lacombe in a one year period, of this total Lacombe Units responded to 1,585.  

Mckellar says there is always room for improvement.

“We believe based on the targets and the research that was put into those targets those are reasonable measures and we are getting to people in a timely manner.”

In areas similar size to Lacombe, a 15 minute response time or less is what is expected out of EMS. Last year, 12 events were reportedly longer than that 15 minute mark.

According to Mckellar, human error, dispatching, and other relevant problems could occur to make response times more delayed.

During the meeting, Councillor Chris Ross mentioned that Lacombe spends a lot of time having to send units to Red Deer, and suggested that if Red Deer got another unit it could take the pressure off the city and cut down on times.

A remark from Mckellar suggests that could be a potential solution.

“I think certainly looking at and reviewing our resource level to identify what may occur in the future and investment opportunities, were always working with our leadership and AHS to identify where there is room for improvement.”

Call volumes have said to have also increased approximately 6.5% since the takeover.

But he adds, that if they were to be responding in less than 15 minutes on a regular basis, that could also be an issue.

 “We also believe that if we exceed those responses than we need to truly understand why those are occurring because there may be a problem.”

Although the system could always be better, he says there is no dire need for direct change just yet.