Albertans raising concerns over diverted ‘non-urgent’ 911 calls

Jacqui Bayne knows her mother is getting the care she needs now that she is in the hospital, but twice, 92-year-old Barbra Ross’s calls to 911, were downgraded to 811.

“Her care facility called me, they said Jacqui I don’t know what’s happening they switched me to 811,” explained Bayne.

Our health care system isn’t broken, it’s absolutely shattered.

This caught Bayne and her mom off guard, because it happened before the province let the public know about the change.

Last week Health Minister Jason Copping and Alberta Health Services announced non-urgent calls will be diverted to a Health Link nurse to free up ambulances.

READ MORE: Alberta to divert non-urgent 911 calls to ease pressure on EMS

The process will reportedly avoid the need to unnecessarily dispatch ambulances, freeing up those resources for more urgent calls.

However, before it was announced, Ross was told twice to go to her family doctor. Despite telling the operator she had some chest pain, breathing problems, dehydration and difficulty walking.

“Transferred when you call 911 and then, have this long drawn out thing and me saying to them and begging them ‘I physically can’t take her, she physically can barely walk to get there,’ and they just sort of brush their hands of it and say well take her to the doctor,” explained Bayne, noting 811 told her to contact a private medical transport service.

“This is not about trying to weed out those who are calling 911, this is about adding another level of care for those who meet certain criteria,” said Jim Garland, associate executive director of EMS Dispatch, Communications & Deployment.

Garland says it’s the patients who would wait, sometime for hours, for a paramedic to look them over, that are being offered a chance to talk with a registered nurse instead, freeing up resources.

The opposition NDP are calling for better staffing of the EMS systems.

“Circumstances like we did this weekend, that perhaps the government is rushing or moving too quickly because they are desperate to show they are taking some kind of action,” said David Shepherd, NDP MLA.

It’s been a week since Bayne drove her mom to the hospital, where she is still admitted, but on the mend.

“When I told my story at triage, one of the nurses said we’ve heard about this, but we’ve never actually seen someone come in that has been denied 911 and you can absolutely see that she needs it. She needs to be here.”

Saying, she understands the need to take steps to free up EMS, but believes there needs to be more oversight.

CityNews has reached out to the Health Minister’s office for comment but have not heard back at this time.

At a press conference with the NDP Tuesday, Bayne says AHS has reached out to her.

“I did get a call from a lovely lady at AHS who finally took the time to hear my full story and said they will be investigating what happened in my situation. I don’t want to lay blame on anyone, I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”