Efforts at Red Deer hospital to get ambulances back on the road within a 45-minute target failed about 50 per cent of time for paramedics who responded to 911 calls in 2024.
For inter-facility patient transfers, 62 per cent of paramedics remained in the hospital's hallways longer than 45 minutes with their patients.
Don Sharpe, with wheresmyambulance.com, said he was not surprised by the data found through Freedom of Information (FOIP) requests.
"In fact, we expected it, and we expect it to get worse," Sharpe said.
He said the goal of Alberta Health Services is for 90 per cent of patients to be handed over to emergency department staff at hospitals within 45 minutes.
So far this year, January data shows staff at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre were unable to meet the target 55 per cent of the time for emergency patients, and 65 per cent of the time for inter-facility transfers.
"We understand long responses are part of the job but when you're doing it frequently because the system is broken, it takes a toll on paramedics," said Sharpe, a former paramedic.
"My responsibility for that patient should end at the door."
Stephen Belich, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 1190 Red Deer, said there has been a trend towards longer wait times when it comes to off-loading patients, which impacts both patients and paramedics.
"You see what effect it has on the patient you're taking care of. The crews are trying to do the best they can in the hallway," said Belich about efforts to support both patients and keep their family members informed.
He said it isn't as bad as it was when there were 12-hour waits with patients, but it's another stress for men and women on the job who are not getting back out for other calls.
Efforts like additional ambulances during peak periods in the city, and transferring patients elsewhere to make room for those who are more critical, has helped, he said.
"I hope it continues to get better. I wouldn't want to see it regress," said Belich, adding health care is one big system and problems within can cause a ripple effect.
Sharpe said Red Deer's emergency department has always been "stuffed" with patients, including those who have been admitted but must wait for a hospital bed.
He said when ambulance services were taken away from municipalities, a consistent level of service was supposed to be available across the province. But delays at Red Deer's hospital are taking ambulances away from surrounding communities because paramedics serving them also get stuck waiting at the hospital.
Alberta Health Services said EMS staff are working hard to make sure an ambulance is there when people in Red Deer and area need it, and AHS is seeing real progress.
The 90th percentile response time was 11.7 minutes in January 2025, slightly below the 12-minute target and a major improvement from the peak of nearly 19 minutes that we saw in 2022.
“We’ll keep working to bring response times down further. A big factor is reducing delays in transferring patients in hospital. In November 2022, EMS spent six hours at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre to transfer a patient, at 90th percentile. By January 2025, that had improved to 2.2 hours — an approximate 63.3 per cent improvement. An ambulance that waited six hours in 2022 was back on the street in just two hours in January," said AHS in a statement.
“We still need to do much better. EMS and the hospital are under strain due to respiratory virus season and other factors, but we'll keep working to remove barriers and improve these metrics."
AHS said EMS has implemented automated notifications to EMS Supervisors when there are delays in ambulances returning to service from hospitals, which allows supervisors to assist crews in getting back into communities. EMS is also working on a new Patient Care Report platform aimed at finding efficiencies in the system, with plans for rollout this year.
"In situations where there are limited ambulances available in the community, EMS has also introduced a process to rapidly transition patient care to hospital staff. This process has already been successfully utilized at the Red Deer Regional Hospital."
AHS said provincial data shows that progress is being made. The amount of time paramedics across AHS spend in hospitals has decreased from 109,362 hours between Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, 2022, to 79,283 hours during the same period in 2024, marking a 28 per cent improvement.
Sharpe said Alberta Health Services has shown a lack of accountability. Ambulance service is primarily a public safety service and should operate independent of health care.
"An ambulance service can't let some other entity, like a hospital, control their fleet because they will always do what's best for them first."
