AHS EMS Priorities: Staffing? No. Patient Care? No. Fancy Chairs? HELL YES.

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Gather ‘round, folks, because we’ve got a doozy for you. Ever wonder what EMS managers say when they think no one’s listening? Turns out, they talk about chairs—a lot. Not about fixing EMS, not about retaining paramedics, not about why entire towns are going without ambulances—just… chairs. Expensive, terrible, back-breaking chairs. And thanks to some good ol’ fashioned Freedom of Information digging, we now have their emails, their budgets, and their sheer, unfiltered incompetence laid bare for your viewing pleasure.

This is ChairGate, a multi-thousand-dollar exercise in wasting taxpayer money under the guise of “improving the frontline experience.” Spoiler alert: It did the exact opposite. Paramedics got garbage furniture, stations got glorified waiting-room seating, and management got real quiet when the backlash hit. But don’t worry, they totally care now—after months of pretending they didn’t know how bad it was. (Narrator: They did.)

Here’s the best part: This post is going to piss them off. Not just a little. Big mad. They thought these emails would never see the light of day—oops. If you enjoy seeing bureaucrats squirm and want us to keep exposing their nonsense, consider dropping $5, $10, or even $15 on our GiveSendGo. It funds our FOIP requests, keeps the receipts coming, and most importantly, drives AHS leadership absolutely insane.

Now, let’s dive in and see just how much money they lit on fire in the name of uncomfortable seating. 🎬🔥

Meet the EMS overlords—a room full of desk-jockeys who haven’t touched an ambulance since pagers were cutting-edge, if ever. One guy’s never even seen the inside of a rig, but he’s got a corner office and a PowerPoint slide titled 'My Vision.' They’ve spent the last decade-plus shuffling papers, not saving lives, and their ‘expertise’ comes from running a crumbling EMS system into the ground. Modern EMS? Clueless—they think Narcan’s a new coffee brand. Yet they strut around, convinced they’re the avant-garde of emergency medicine, barking orders like, 'Back in my day, we duct-taped everything!' Question their outdated brilliance? You’re toast—they’ll swarm you with memos and smug glares, too busy defending their egos to notice the system’s flatlining. The danger? They’re steering a sinking ship they don’t even know how to sail.

These are the same people have overseen Chair gate. What is Chair gate in case you have been living under a rock you ask? Well it is a grand display of managerial incompetence with the goal of “BSOS has been provided funding to improve front line staff experience at work”.

Now, what we’re sharing with you is a large file—email correspondence spanning over a year—filled with themes ranging from blatant disregard for paramedics to outright idiocracy. It’s almost as if management watched Idiocracy and thought, Hey, this Brawndo stuff seems legit because it has electrolytes!

(If you don’t get the reference, take an hour and a half out of your day and watch the movie—you won’t regret it.)

As we dug through the file, one of the first spreadsheets that caught our attention was a list of various stations with dollar amounts assigned to each one (see page 17 for reference).

At first, we assumed this was the final chair budget, but upon closer inspection, we realized it was actually the renovation budget for each station—and we’re using the term renovation VERY liberally.

So, what did AHS get for these costs? A paint job, a new desk, a new computer chair, some new chairs and couches, and... wall protectors (whatever those are), sometimes you might even be "lucky" enough to get new flooring.

This first appears on pages 49 and 50.

Here are some pictures of the glorious finished products—renovations supposedly meant to improve paramedics’ work environments, all for tens of thousands of dollars per station.

Raises? Nah. It’s only a cost-of-living crisis, after all. Instead, let’s burn through absurd amounts of taxpayer money on “renovations” that look like they were designed by someone with a Home Depot gift card and a grudge against aesthetics. Truly, a masterclass in government waste—at least by our standards.

Jump to pages 56-61, but don’t worry, we’ll throw in a quick screenshot of what they consider a top-tier finished product. (Insert dramatic eye roll here.)

Now it’s time to dispel the myths and drop some truth bombs—because, honestly, who knew? How much did they know? And just how deep were they in this mess?

For reference, pages 82-89 lay it all out, but don’t worry—we’ll throw in a quick email screenshot just to highlight the key players in Calgary. You know, the same managers who are now putting on their best "shocked and appalled" faces, acting like this crisis just suddenly fell from the sky. (Page 86-89, in Calgary Zone will show you who is going to get their chairs next if you have not already)

Funny thing, though—these email exchanges date back to March 13, 2024. And back then? Crickets. Zero outrage. No passionate speeches about protecting their medics.

They care now, sure. But they sure as hell didn’t seem to care then.

Now, if you flip over to pages 90-99, you’ll find the classic "Wait, what? Staff aren’t happy?" response. Shocking, truly. Who could have possibly predicted that paramedics wouldn’t be thrilled with half-baked, overpriced "renovations"?

Also, if you needed solid proof that management is spying on the EMS Rants Facebook page, well—here it is on page 93. Nothing says "we value our employees" quite like lurking in the comment section instead of fixing the actual problems.

Let’s talk unit cost per chair, shall we?

We got a message from someone suggesting these chairs were nearly $3,000 each—but don’t worry, we’ve got good news! They’re actually only $2,200-$2,600 per unit.

Ah yes, fiscal responsibility at its finest. Nothing screams "we care about our frontline staff" like dropping two grand per chair while paramedics are out here working understaffed and underpaid.

Now, there are plenty of reasons AHS chooses to go with the IV chairs, but in the spirit of fiscal responsibility—you know, the responsible spending of taxpayer money…

MONEY THAT ISN’T THEIRS BUT THEY SPEND ANYWAY LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR…

Kind of like the $32+ million they burn through annually on overtime.

But sure, tell us again how there’s just no money for proper staffing, raises, or literally anything that would actually improve EMS.

Oh and head over to page 103-104, 110-111 if you want to read yet more complaints.....

Flip over to pages 112-113, and you’ll see a mention of staff engagement (more on that train wreck later). But, as far as we can tell, no actual engagement happened.

This was after the first round of atrocious chairs were installed and a deluge of complaints came rolling in.

Essentially: Uh oh. We were supposed to make the medics happy… but instead, we pissed them off. Oops.

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And page 113-115 another complaint, funny enough one where retention gets called out because turn EMS stations into places medics don't want to rest mid way through a 12 hour night shift and surprise surprise you hurt moral. Good job guys!

Jump over to page 119, and you’ll find a Calgary Director stating that the older recliners should only be replaced with newer recliners. Sounds reasonable, right?

Funny thing, though—we spoke with someone on EMAC, who told us that “leadership” described their role in this whole fiasco as passive observers.

And yet… here they are, actively engaging in decisions a bit more than you'd expect a passive observer (who ironically says they are outraged by the whole mess). Wouldn’t you say that’s a bit more hands-on than they claimed?

This little contradiction continues all the way to page 122, if you feel like diving deeper into the absurdity.

Page 123—at long last, we get capitulation. AHS finally admits that they’ll undo their terrible decision and bring back the chairs that staff actually liked. Worth noting, though—up to this point, the only complaint we’ve seen about the old chairs was one person saying:

"The brown chairs were a bit tired."

That’s it. That’s the grand justification for this entire expensive, ridiculous, unnecessary mess. This goes on for some time all the way to page 139.

Now, AHS EMS “leadership” has been peddling the excuse that this was all high-level stuff! A direct decree from IP&C—as if some almighty figure handed down the order and their hands were completely tied.

Well, we’ve combed through hundreds of emails, and guess what? The first mention of standardizing chairs doesn’t appear until page 140 and goes onwards to page 146—months after these email chains first began.

Curious, isn’t it? Almost like… they just made it up after the fact. Oh also note who this first email is from. Now the senior leadership team is all too aware of the situation to as of May.

After a bit of convenient censorship, we find the senior leadership team, alongside the CEO’s office, apparently discussing the chairs—and how awful they are.

Also, this was in May.

So, they knew. They knew for months. But instead of fixing the mess they created, they just kept digging the hole deeper.

Now, there might be some hand-wringing from the management team about what these replacements actually were.

“Leadership” might try to spin it as: "Oh, we thought we were swapping nice older recliners for even nicer new recliners!" Not for cheap, uncomfortable junk better suited for a hospital ward—you know, the kind of chairs meant for sick patients waiting to be discharged, not exhausted paramedics trying to survive their shifts.

Well, just in case they ever try that excuse—here’s the proof that they knew exactly how bad these chairs were going to be. And they did it anyway.

Oh, and note the date—July 2. They had plenty of time to stop this disaster. They just chose not to. You will want to jump over to page 159.

Oh, and for all you Edmonton folks—you’re gonna love page 164.

Take a peek and see exactly where you rank on AHS’s list of priorities. (Spoiler: It’s not great.)

On August 19, page 177 we have Calgary Directors openly admitting that—yes—they fully understood just how terrible these chairs would be.

They even referred to the old-style chairs as "plush," which clearly means they knew they were comfortable and that medics actually liked them. And yet, they still went ahead and swapped them out for the aforementioned garbage—the ones that have infuriated every single medic and somehow managed to crush staff morale even further, despite morale already being buried six feet under.

Honestly, no wonder people are quitting in droves. Shame on them.

Actually, scratch that—shame doesn’t even begin to cover what medics have endured over the last few years. You know what word fits better? INCOMPETENCE. INCOMPETENCE!!!! At least this director does so with a little ":)".

You can read this all the way through to page 182. Also, take note—the directors acknowledge that they could set some of these chairs up at stations like Stonegate and 41 Station in Calgary… but, oh wait, they just don’t see it as essential. If only they had applied that same groundbreaking logic before they triggered a massive staff backlash over this horrendous decision.

Here’s another gem from the Department of Unbelievable Hypocrisy.

AHS has taken the position that EMS chairs must meet NFPA standards. Yes, because clearly, the biggest threat to paramedics isn’t burnout, staffing shortages, or mismanagement—it’s spontaneously combusting furniture.

They even admit this makes stations feel less like home, but don’t worry—it’s all for the greater good… somehow.

So let’s revisit the very first picture we showed you. This beauty comes straight from 12 Station, where firefighters get to keep their comfy, non-NFPA-compliant chairs while EMS has theirs stripped away in the name of safety.

And the best part? These two seating arrangements exist within maybe 15 feet of each other. The irony here is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Or, in AHS’s case, completely ignore it while making terrible decisions.

So, there you have it—Chairgate, the scandal nobody asked for, but one that perfectly encapsulates AHS EMS management’s uncanny ability to turn even the simplest of decisions into a dumpster fire. They had months to fix this mess, knew exactly how bad it was, and still doubled down because, well, that’s what they do best. It wasn’t about improving frontline conditions—it was about control, optics, and spending taxpayer money like it’s Monopoly cash.

And let’s be real—this wasn’t just about chairs. This was about leadership that doesn’t listen, doesn’t care, and doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing. They’ve got money for overpriced furniture but not for properly staffing ambulances? They can micromanage lounge seating but can’t figure out why paramedics are quitting in droves? If you weren’t mad before, you should be now.

If you appreciate the time, effort, and sheer number of FOIP requests that went into exposing this mess, consider tossing a few bucks our way at https://www.givesendgo.com/GC4M8. Every $5, $10, or $15 helps us keep digging into AHS’s nonsense—and let’s be honest, the best part? It pisses them off. Big time.