Barb Bobychuk says emergency services charged her 89-year-old mother-in-law too much when paramedics did a short assessment on her for a fall that didn’t require an ambulance ride to the hospital.
“They basically took her vitals, you know, heart rate, blood pressure and temperature … I don’t even think a doctor makes that for less than nine minutes of work,” Bobychuck said.
Bobychuck, who retired last April from over two decades of working as a 911 operator, says paramedics assessed her mother-in-law at her home early October of this year. The service lasted around eight minutes and she was charged $237 for the visit.
According to a chart of emergency services rates on a City of Winnipeg website, the cost for a patient from Manitoba to be brought to hospital by ambulance is $250. That number nearly triples for patients who have residency outside of Manitoba and need emergency care while in the province.
Close to half the ambulance bills handed out by the City of Winnipeg in 2022 year remain unpaid.
A deterrent to care
Bobychuk says charging people for an assessment only, especially elderly people on a fixed income, deters people from calling emergency services when they need support.
“The government wants our elderly population to ‘age in place’ so that they aren’t going into care. Yet when they call for help, they are being charged an astronomical amount, in my opinion,” said Bobychuk.
A 911 telephone operator from 2001 until she retired this year, Bobychuck says she spoke to many people during her career who asked her not to send an ambulance.
“If they’re worried that they are going to be charged and they don’t have the money to pay, they could be laying on the floor for days waiting for their neighbour to maybe find them and help them instead of calling for help,” Bobychuk said.
“This is a cash grab from the city as far as I’m concerned,” said Bobychuk.
“Basically the city is making people choose between their health and their livelihood.”
In an email to CBC News, Erin Madden, a public information officer for the City of Winnipeg, wrote that fees for emergency medical services are not city revenue.
The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service “operates EMS within Winnipeg on a 100 per cent cost recovery basis,” Madden said.
“Any revenue collected from EMS services, effectively reduces the grant Shared Health pays us to cover the cost of the EMS,” she said.
“We are collecting this revenue on behalf of Shared Health, based on rates they approve. We charge patients based on Manitoba Health policy.”
There have been 8,242 invoices issued for treatment without transport services at a total charge of $1,693,191 as of December this year, Madden said.
CBC News contacted the province for a statement on ambulance fees but did not receive comment prior to publication.
Last year the Manitoba government unveiled a strategy for seniors in the province that included strategic initiatives to help seniors live at home as long as they wish or are safely able.
According to data from statistics Canada released early this year, almost a quarter of the national population will be over 65 by 2030.
