On Tuesday, Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky waded back in the affairs of the province's medical superboard, stopping the centralization of emergency dispatch services.

Zwozdesky declared that he has at once impeded the centralization of ambulance dispatch systems through Alberta Health Services, after hearing constant fears from communities across the province about slow response times.

On April 1, 2009, the Stelmach Government had seized the ambulance services from municipalities, and had been slowly combining 35 dispatch centers down to three sites in Calgary, Edmonton and Grimshaw.

With the centralization process to be finished by 2012, all 911 emergency calls for medical emergencies are to be routed through the three centers.

Till date, 17 centers have been centralized, but the Minister said that he had notified AHS last week that he is halting the process for the time being to evaluate if the changes are providing efficient services that were at first anticipated.

However, he is not considering reversing any of the centers that have already been centralized.

Meanwhile, Donald Johnson, President of the AAMDC, said that emergency teams in some cases, have taken almost an hour to respond to calls since the dispatch centers are not familiar with the roads and geography of a region.

"The last few months we've heard about some challenges. There's some really serious issues that could cost people's lives", he said.