Lethbridge Fire and EMS receiving two new ambulances to assist in response times

LETHBRIDGE -

Help is on the way for Lethbridge's emergency medical services (EMS).

The City of Lethbridge and Alberta Health Services (AHS) have announced two new ambulances will be added to the city's fleet later this spring.

"The safety of our residents is always the most important to us," said Jenn Schmidt-Rempel, Lethbridge’s acting mayor.

"So this improves that EMS time, this improves that service and it's something that we're certainly excited to see happening down here in Lethbridge."

It's anticipated the new emergency transports will mean better help for residents and shorter ambulance wait times across the city.

"I believe we're around that 10-minute mark, but this will certainly help reduce that, as well as it'll make more availability for that next emergency, where we'll have more available resources to respond," said Greg Adair, Lethbridge Fire and EMS chief.

"It will alleviate some of those pressures that our EMS teams are seeing right now," Schmidt-Rempel added.

"It's going to improve the morale, as well as making sure that our residents here in the City of Lethbridge are getting the services that they need."

The ambulances will run 12-hour days, seven days a week, and provide advanced life support.

Ten new full-time positions will also be created to run the emergency transports.

The new vehicles will also assist nearby towns and counties.

"We do hope that we will see a decrease of units from surrounding rural communities being pulled into Lethbridge to support the citizens of Lethbridge," said Suzanne Maynard, AHS’s south zone director of EMS operations.

The ambulance additions were made possible through more than $300,000 in new funding and $1.79 million in ongoing contract annual renewal funding, both from AHS.

Schmidt-Rempel says the city has been campaigning for the extra resources and is relieved to see it come to fruition.

"We certainly put this forward as a need for our community," she said.

"We wrote letters and we were actively engaged with the ministers and the opportunity that we had to let them know that we did need these extra services down here."

The new ambulances will bring the city up to a total of 10 and are expected to be up and running by May 1.