Manitoba plans to pay for a dedicated service to transport low-acuity hospital in-patients and personal care home residents to medical appointments, in a move the province says aims to help reduce demand on rural ambulances.

The contract for the service, which is expected to be in place by the end of 2022, will be awarded through a request for proposals issued by Shared Health on Friday, the province said in a news release the same day.

The work could be given to more than one applicant, and applications can be made to provide service for more than one community, it said.

The plan is for patients and care home residents to be transported to appointments, diagnostic tests or treatment sessions without tying up ambulances, the release said.

Base locations for the service will be in Brandon, Selkirk and the Winkler-Morden area, each of which will serve a wider catchment area within their health region.

The service will also include trips to Winnipeg for care, with plans to expand it to more communities, Health Minister Audrey Gordon said in the release. 

Moving low-acuity in-patients between health-care facilities can be a long process that takes rural ambulances out of service for hours, Gordon said.

A transport service specifically for those patients will reduce the demand for paramedics to complete those trips — which will allow them to remain near their communities for emergency calls, she said.

Outside Winnipeg, ambulance services have historically been used for all trips between hospitals, mostly because patients and clients often need to be transported on a stretcher, the release said. 

But patients don't need ongoing clinical support in most inter-facility transport situations, said Dr. Rob Grierson, chief medical officer for emergency response services for Shared Health, in the province's release.

Having a low-acuity transport option will give those patients the right kind of care, and free up paramedics and ambulances to respond where they're needed, Grierson said.

The province said low-acuity transport was recently piloted in a few communities, but did not provide details about where, or how the pilot went.

The Progressive Conservative government's realignment of emergency response services under Shared Health identified the provincewide need for a low-acuity inter-facility transport service like one that's been in place for several years in Winnipeg, according to the province.

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals said while the province needs creative solutions to its paramedic staffing challenges, the government shouldn't take shortcuts that put patient safety at risk.

An emailed statement attributed to union president Bob Moroz described the initiative as a Band-Aid solution.

The association also has serious concerns about the viability of a plan to privatize patient transports to an unregulated industry, based on a pilot project with results that haven't been shared, the statement said.

It also raised questions about what training and resources transport staff will have to respond to situations where a patient's condition changes rapidly.

The Opposition NDP also raised concerns about the plan, saying the government should be focused on hiring more paramedics in rural Manitoba instead of bringing in a private company to transport some patients. 

NDP Leader Wab Kinew noted in an emailed statement that the Progressive Conservatives' announcement comes after the government closed emergency medical service stations in parts of the province.

With files from Gavin Boutroy

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