HALO, local politicians perplexed at delay on province’s helicopter services review

“The goalposts seem to move all the time,” said HALO CEO Paul Carolan. “We may not have been happy with the results of the review, but at least it would have put the goalposts in the same place and then we could make some strong decisions about how we achieve them.”

At this week’s conference of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, provincial health minister Tyler Shandro was asked by Cypress County reeve Dan Hamilton what the status of the review was.

Shandro responded that while the report had been submitted, he deemed it ‘insufficient’ and has sent the report back to Alberta Health Services.

“We do appreciate that doing it right is more important than doing it quickly,” said Carolan. “But, we’ve been waiting a long time for the results of this review. It’s very interesting to us that a comprehensive review – I mean we participated in it – could be considered insufficient.”

According to Carolan, the province has not contacted HALO about the status of the report and added that he found out about the delay as the rest of the public.

For HALO, the results of the HEMS review are a critical piece for determining what the funding model for the organization will look like in the long run.

Earlier this summer, HALO was put on life support as the COVID-19 pandemic limited fundraising opportunities and the program came within weeks of ceasing operations without provincial support.

Thanks to a wave of public donations in the following weeks, HALO was able to maintain full operations and currently have enough in their coffers to stretch into the second quarter of 2021.

However, the province said they would not support the medevac organization financially until the results of the HEMS study were found.

Cypress County has been in contact with HALO and other rural municipalities with the hope that their concerns will be heard by the provincial health ministry.

“The ratepayers of Alberta paid for it, it should be information that we can see,” said Hamilton. “Let’s get it out, let’s get it opened up. What’s in it? What else do you need? If you need other information in there let’s get on it, let’s get it done. A year is long enough.”

Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes sent a letter to Shandro on Thursday outlining the concerns he’s having and requesting that the report is released to the public as is.

“The good people of HALO and their volunteers are in their 14th year I think of taking care of us,” said Barnes. “We’ve carried this ball ourselves for this long and it’s not fair, no more reports.”

Along with requesting the release of the completed report, Barnes is asking Shandro’s office to divert $1.3 million from the budget of STARS Air Ambulance to HALO.

Communication between the health ministry and HALO has been almost non-existent since the summer according to Carolan, feeling it’s a one-way conversation at this point.

“We share the feeling and sentiments from the counties and certainly the constituents across southern Alberta, why is this the case?” he said. “Why are we not seeing the results, at least an interim report? But, to be told blanket that it was just not sufficient and it’s going back is concerning and very frustrating. And, it affects a lot of things for us.”

When he was re-elected to office in the spring of 2019, Barnes said he set out to make provincial funding for HALO one of his top priorities.

Now creeping up to two years of the UCP in power, the local MLA claims there’s no excuse for the lack of movement on this file.

“Our government is now 18 or 19 months [in office] and we’ve got many reports going on,” said Barnes. “There’s some things you don’t need a report for, there’s some things you can just do.”

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the last few months have provided new fundraising opportunities for HALO which Carolan expects to continue into the new year.

And that stream of money is what’s expected to keep HALO helicopters flying, whether or not the province steps up to the plate financially.

“We’re going to figure out a way to do this without the government because that’s really what we’ve had to do the entire time we’ve been around,” said Carolan. “HALO is committed to continuing to serve southern Alberta, we want to continue to provide world-class helicopter service to southern Alberta.”

by Scott Roblin

HALO, local politicians perplexed at delay on province’s helicopter services review

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