Metropolitan Ambulance Service (Canada)

The Metropolitan Ambulance Service (MAS; French: Service d'ambulance métropolitain, SAM) is an agency of the Metropolitan Department of Public Security of Ottawa, the federal capital city of the Canadian Republic. As Ottawa forms its own administrative entity separate from the 13 provinces and five territories which constitute the federal units of Canada, most of its public services are provided by agencies unique to the city, the Metropolitan Ambulance Service being one example.

Headquartered in the Ottawa borough of Alta Vista adjacent to Ottawa Children's Hospital and the Riverside Campus of Ottawa Hospital, the Metropolitan Ambulance Service has a total of 2880 employees serving a population of approximately 2.55 million, which can increase to up to 3 million during weekdays due primarily to commuters. The Metropolitan Ambulance Service operates a fleet of 220 regular ambulances, 45 specially-equipped ambulances such as those capable of advanced life support or highly tedious/dangerous hospital transfers, and three Sikorsky S-76 air ambulances. While the medical equipment and medical personnel in the air ambulances as well as the operating expenses belong to and are the responsibility of the Metropolitan Ambulance Service, the actual aircraft themselves belong to Libra Helicopters, an Ottawa-based commercial helicopter company for which the three air ambulances' pilots also work, which leases to the Metropolitan Ambulance Service the rights to use the three helicopters as air ambulances.

The air ambulances also provide medevac services on a contract basis for most municipalities in Ontario and Quebec which form part of Ottawa's metropolitan area, as most accidents and other medical crises needing immediate medevac require the patient's transportation to a fully-equipped, major hospital capable of all forms of specialised surgery and other treatments; while many neighbouring municipalities of Greater Ottawa have hospitals of their own, the main hospitals of Ottawa are by far the most advanced and capable in the region, and thus, virtually all medevac services provided by the Metropolitan Ambulance Service to neighbouring municipalities involve the transportation of the evacuated patient(s) to one of Ottawa's hospitals; for the same reason, the ambulance services of Ontario and Quebec operating in or near Greater Ottawa commonly transport patients to a hospital located in Ottawa proper.