Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

Alberta

Provincial report recommends doubling support and making STARS sole air ambulance provider

Published

3 minute read

Stars Red Deer

Helicopter Emergency Medical Services Report released

A report on Alberta’s helicopter emergency medical services looks at existing services, gaps in coverage, best practices and procedures, and funding models.

Over the coming months, the Government of Alberta will evaluate the report and consult with helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) providers before making any final decisions.

The Helicopter Emergency Medical Services Report has 11 recommendations, with the three main recommendations being:

  • Single provider: Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service (STARS) would become the dedicated helicopter emergency medical service provider for the province. STARS would work with other helicopter emergency medical providers to ensure consistent, safe coverage across Alberta. Provincial funding for STARS would rise to 50 per cent of their operating budget (from the current 23 per cent).
  • Legislation: A new air ambulance regulation would establish consistent deployment, operational, clinical and aviation standards.
  • Dispatch integration: The dispatch of STARS would be integrated with other emergency medical services to allow for the best use of all services to achieve the most efficient response.

“Thank you to the HEMS providers and community leaders who provided their perspective on the delivery of helicopter emergency medical services in Alberta. We all agree that in life-threatening situations, Albertans need to know that they can get the help they need – no matter where they are. We will be reviewing the report further and consulting with HEMS providers in the coming months to determine next steps.”

Tyler Shandro, Minister of Health

Quick facts

  • Helicopter emergency medical services are essential when ground ambulances cannot reach Albertans during a medical emergency or they are unable to reach them in a safe and timely manner.
  • Alberta Health Services is responsible for the delivery of emergency medical services across Alberta, including ground, fixed-wing and helicopter ambulances.
  • Currently, Alberta Health Services provides about $8.4 million per year to helicopter emergency medical services funding.
  • Approximately 1,450 helicopter flights take place each year; 7,300 are flown using fixed-wing aircraft.
  • The three main helicopter service providers that support emergency medical services are:
    • STARS (Shock Trauma Air Rescue Service)
      • Bases are located in Calgary, Edmonton and Grande Prairie.
      • In 2019-20, STARS flew 1,255 missions (about 92.6 per cent of all missions).
      • STARS covers 90 per cent of Alberta’s rural and remote population without refuelling from its current base locations.
      • STARS is the only provider that delivers critical care level service on 24-7 dedicated helicopters with advanced life-support equipment.
    • HALO (Helicopter Air Lift Operation)
      • Based in Medicine Hat, it serves southeast Alberta.
      • In 2019-20, HALO flew 38 missions (about 2.8 per cent of all missions).
    • HERO (Helicopter Emergency Response Organization)
      • Based in Fort McMurray, it serves northeast Alberta.
      • In 2019-20, HERO flew 62 missions (about 4.6 per cent of all missions).
  • Currently, there are no regulations guiding the standards of air ambulance medical services in Alberta.

Alberta

Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.

A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.

H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.

School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.

In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.

The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”

In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”

The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”

Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”

He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”

Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.

According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.

Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”

Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.

Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

Continue Reading

Alberta

Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.

Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.

As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.

The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.

Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.

“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”

According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”

He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”

Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

The ban was to take effect on October 1.

The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.

The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

Continue Reading

Trending

X