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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A new "state-of-the-art" air ambulance base at Edmonton International Airport is expected to offset longer driving times to hospitals for patients from the North as the City Centre Airport is slated to close.

Medevac flights from the NWT will continue to go to the City Centre Airport until mid-March, when the air ambulance base will be complete, said Alberta Health Services spokesman Haydon Dewes.

"It will be complete by March 15. As of that date all flights will go to the international airport," Dewes said yesterday.

The new air ambulance base will feature a six-bed urgent care centre staffed by Emergency Medical Services staff where less urgent patients can receive care on site.

It is situated adjacent to the new Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS) emergency air ambulance facilities, allowing for the most urgent patients to be flown from the international airport to hospital using a STARS helicopter.

By helicopter, the distance from the international airport to the University of Alberta Hospital is 10 minutes, and to Royal Alexandra Hospital about 12 minutes.

Despite the measures being introduced with the new air ambulance base and helicopter availability, Northern medevac operators are still "extremely disappointed" by the City of Edmonton's decision to close the City Centre Airport, said Stephen Nourse, executive director of the Northern Air Transportation Association.

"It's fine to put all of that in place but the fact remains: right now, they land literally on the doorstep of a first-class medical institution. So the reality is, you can put all the interim steps in there but you still have a degradation in service," Nourse said. "It still doesn't replace literally landing on the doorstep of a first-class medical institution.

"We're extremely disappointed that the city has gone this route. We think it - without sounding too dramatic - we think it puts peoples' lives at risk."

For the majority of patients who will now be transported from the international airport to hospital by ground ambulance, it will be about 37 minutes to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, compared to five minutes from the City Centre Airport, and 30 minutes to travel to the U of A Hospital, compared to the current 13-minute travel time.

While Northern communities have been dependent on the inner-city airport for medevac service, the new air ambulance base announcement is "very welcoming," said Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny on Tuesday, noting that members of the legislative assembly had not yet received a full briefing on the plan.

"As we see the imminent closure of the municipal airport and the opening of the international division, many people were really concerned it was just a drop-off pick-up point and we were just going to strictly do ground transportation from that point forward," Dolynny said. "It was very clear the math was not there so they've obviously took some time to address it. At the end of the day, I think this is a viable option."

The "vast majority" of patients arriving in Edmonton by air ambulance are flown in for specialized service, to see a specialist or get a test done, said Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne, so they will especially benefit from the new facility, which will have six patient beds on site.

"We are moving to a new state-of-the-art medevac facility at the International," Horne said. "I think people are going to be very impressed when the new facility opens in March and when they see some of the new things that we have to offer as part of our medevac service."

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