The Wildrose Party is speaking out against problems that have not been addressed by Alberta Health Services' new performance targets for ambulance delivery times.

Livingstone-Macleod MLA Pat Stier says AHS has disregarded issues that were raised in the Rural Health Report.

"They have totally ignored the recommendation of the Health Quality for Rural Areas Report that was done by the previous government last March, that recommended that ambulances that were responding from rural areas to major centers not be delayed in unloading their passengers and moving back to their home area."

Stier also urges the AHS to reconsider the system they use to redirect ambulances after they have dropped off their passengers.

"Further that they not be redirected in the flexing of these ambulance under the central dispatch system to areas that are not covered normally by those units."

Under the new AHS four-tier ambulance scheme, the targets for ambulance delivery times should be around twelve minutes for urban areas, fifteen minutes for a community over 3,000 people, forty minues for rural areas, and seventy-five minutes for places considered remote.

Stier says these classifications do not necessitate appropriate response times for bedroom communities.

"The areas that are deemed remote according to their map would include those adjacent communities to the cities, where those kinds of wait times of forty-five mintes or longer are totally inappropriate." He explains, "admittedly there are remote areas of our province, but they shouldn't be within just a few moments drive from the cities."

Well over ninety percent of the province's geography falls under the remote or rural categories and will continue to face unacceptable wait times for emergency care.

Stier says the Wildrose will continue to be loud about this issue and hopefully have some changes made as soon as possible.