Kikino signs ambulance agreement

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After two years of on-again, off-again negotiations, the Kikino Metis Settlement, 185 km northeast of Edmonton, has signed an ambulance service agreement. A three-year contract with Lac La Biche Regional EMS was signed July 20 after a fast-track bargaining effort by Kikino councillor Floyd Thompson.

Thompson said the key to reaching an agreement was going directly to the owner of the ambulance service, and recognizing the real cost of running the business.

"I knew there was no way we were going to get in through the regional ambulance authority," he said.

The regional authority is made up of the neighboring municipalities of Lakeland County, the town of Lac La Biche, and the Village of Plamondon. Thompson made no attempt to contact that group.

He explained that when he was elected to Kikino council in May he asked the council if he could work on finalizing an ambulance agreement. "When I came in everything was at a stalemate," he said. He decided to bypass the ambulance authority because "background information said it was no use.

"There was no support with the exception of Lac La Biche mayor Duane Young."

Cutting a deal took only one meeting with ambulance owner Floyd House, Thompson added. The quick deal was possible because Kikino council recognized the need to pay a per-capita subsidy, and share start-up costs. "The deal required that he (House) get another ambulance," Thompson said, so Kikino had to be willing to pay part of that cost.

The contract calls for annual subsidy payments of $13.96 per capita, based on a population of 829, and a one-time start-up payment of $8,900. The average yearly cost of the agreement is $14,500.

The regional ambulance authority had asked for $30,000 a year to include Kikino in the service contract with Lac La Biche Regional EMS, or more than $30 per capita. That amount was determined by the ambulance operator, said Debra Lozinski, chair of the ambulance authority and reeve of Lakeland County.

Kikino Settlement chairman Harold Cardinal said the provincial average is $7 to $11.

Although the residents of Kikino were never without ambulance service, the lack of a formal contract put them at a certain level of risk, said Cardinal. Ambulance response times and potential liability issues for the settlement also had to be considered.

Even without an agreement, Lac La Biche had been providing service to Kikino from unsubsidized private operators. When Lac La Biche Regional EMS got the ambulance contract, Kikino received assurances from the operator that service to the settlement would continue, said Cardinal.

Even so, Kikino council started negotiations to join the ambulance authority.

"We could have sat back and said he's coming here anyway, he's not going to refuse calls," Thompson said. "But that's not the way to conduct business."

Cardinal, who was involved since June 2000, characterized it as a "long process we went through; a lot of political agendas.

"We felt the region had shut us out," he said. "The regional authority never gave us a straight answer on whether we could join or not.

"The regional board didn't tell us directly that we couldn't join, but the $30,000 was our problem to deal with," Cardinal said. "They had us over a barrel."

The subsidy of $13.96 per capita in the new contract is in line with what is happening in the rest of the province, said Thompson. "The bottom line is we are happy with the deal. Floyd House and his staff know the community very well, and have provided good service."

House is also happy to get a contract in place.

"It was a pretty bumpy road," he said of the negotiations. House added that no other ambulance business in the province operates without a subsidy.

The cost of providing ambulance service to small, rural communities remains an issue, said Cardinal. He hopes solutions will come out of a province-wide review of ambulance services currently being conducted by the Alberta government.