View From the Legislature

Three years ago, Manitoba had the highest ambulance fees of the prairie provinces. Today, it has the lowest.

When we were elected into government in 2016, Manitobans who called for the help of paramedics were charged an average of $500 per ambulance ride. That was resulting in too many Manitobans worrying about how they were going to pay for the cost of an ambulance in their greatest time of need. It was not unusual to hear stories of Manitobans who chose to either drive themselves to a hospital or have someone else drive them when they were in need of an ambulance.

During the last election campaign, we promised Manitobans that if we were elected government we would reduce ambulance fees in Manitoba by half within our first term of government. On Monday, we were able to announce that this promise has now been fulfilled with ambulance fees being reduced to no more than $250 per ride.

While this is an announcement that will be welcomed by all Manitobans, it is particularly important to our population of seniors. This is the segment of the population that is both most likely to need to call for an ambulance and the least likely to be able to pay for it. The $500 fee was simply a deterrent to calling an ambulance for many Manitoba seniors.

This announcement adds on to the many different ways that our government has been working to improve care through paramedics and ambulance service. Highly skilled paramedics mean that the life saving service that Manitobans may require begins not when they arrive at the hospital, but when the paramedics and ambulance arrive at their home or at the scene of an emergency.

In addition to lowering ambulance fees, we have hired 95 full-time rural paramedics to help ensure that paramedic service is available quickly for Manitobans. With new paramedics comes the need for ambulances, and we have also recently issued a request for proposals to purchase 65 new ambulances to ensure that our fleet of ambulances is modern and reliable.

As well, we are ensuring that our paramedics are professionally trained and governed by giving the paramedic profession the right to self-regulate as many other medical professionals are in the province of Manitoba.

While the promise to reduce the provincial sales tax from 8% to 7% received much of the attention during the last election (and which will be fulfilled on July 1), the commitment to reduce ambulance fees was an equally important pledge to many Manitobans. The combination of more paramedics and lower ambulance fees will undoubtedly save lives.

I am proud to be part of a government that is keeping its promises to Manitobans and look forward to additional announcements on how our province is becoming the most improved in Canada.