Alberta announces 9 additional ambulances for Calgary, Edmonton
The province is hoping the addition of nine more ambulances will help ease the strain on Alberta's health-care system.
Officials announced the new vehicles on Tuesday, saying they are already operational and serving patients in Calgary and Edmonton.
Edmonton received five of the vehicles while Calgary got four. Edmonton also received four new Non-Ambulance Transport (NAT) vehicles.
Alberta Health Services (AHS) says the ambulances are funded through $16 million included in the current provincial budget.
"Our healthcare system remains under strain, especially in Edmonton and Calgary, and we continue to see increased pressure on EMS and our emergency departments in particular," said Minister of Health Jason Copping in a release.
"We are adding resources and staff across the system, and this will help to ensure Albertans continue to get the care they need."
New staff have been hired to operate the ambulances.
"Every resource we can add helps us provide care for Albertans," said Darren Sandbeck, chief paramedic and senior provincial director for EMS in a release.
"We continue to see a large increase in call volume that is keeping EMS crews busy, and these new ambulances and their paramedic crews are already hard at work serving Albertans."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Thanks to wildfires, air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.