It can’t even be described as adding insult to injury — because Craig Reid says he has no clue what the injury was.

Nonetheless, Alberta Health Services is now calling the man from Olds a deadbeat, claiming Reid failed to pay $395 for an ambulance ride in Edmonton this past December — and unless he coughs up within 15 days, the bill will be handed over to a collection agency.

Which might be justified, if Reid was really welching over the price of the Dec. 12, 2014 emergency call from southwest Edmonton to the Royal Alexandra Hospital — but Reid says he hasn’t been near Edmonton since the summer of 2013, and he was at home in Olds on the day in question.

“My landlord offered to write a statements, telling them I was here at home, but they say it isn’t good enough — I need real proof, like bills or receipts,” said Reid.

“I wasn’t in Edmonton, but they won’t believe me.”

All Reid can offer is a bank statement from an Olds ATM, dated Dec. 13, 11:03 a.m., but the evidence is useless, thanks to red tape and ridiculously strict privacy laws.

Health officials say Reid was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, but they can’t tell him why due to privacy regulations.

“They say they can’t tell me over the phone, and I’m the one who was supposedly in the hospital,” said Reid.

Yes, even though he is the alleged patient in question and the person whose privacy stands to be violated, Reid’s question about his supposed hospital care is considered too personal an answer to reveal, even to the very person whose privacy is being protected.

The mind boggles.

But this means Reid has no idea if the patient in question was still confined to hospital on Dec. 13, in which case he may have an alibi proving he couldn’t have been the one in the ambulance.

If he knew anything at all about the reason for the ambulance ride, Reid might have more to go on, but AHS is staying silent — except when it comes to asking for their $395.

“I know where I was, and I was at home. But how can I prove it?” said Reid.

No one with Alberta Health Services could be reached on Sunday, but a communications official took Reid’s name and said the matter would be reviewed.

In the meantime, Reid says he can only wait and hope the matter is resolved before 15 days is up.

He says none of it makes sense.

Perhaps most confounding is the original bill being addressed to Craig Edward Dyck, a name Reid used until 1997 when he had it officially changed.

After pointing out this curious error to an official at the AHS, Reid says the correspondence suddenly switched to match his current name — but the demand for payment remained the same.

The real irony here is that 50-year-old Reid doesn’t actually have to pay the $395 bill. The province does.

Having suffered from strokes and other health ailments, Reid is currently on AISH, or Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped, and that means certain health needs are covered by the province, including emergency ambulance trips.

Reid says he could easily just accept Alberta Health Service’s mistake and send the bill to AISH, but he doesn’t feel that’s right, on principal.

And so he’s chosen to fight, while putting his credit rating at risk over the threat of non-payment and a collection agency.

“They keep saying, ‘we’re going to make you pay, we’re going to get a collection agency,’ and of course, that gets me upset,” said Reid.

“I’m on AISH, and I’m covered, so why would I be lying and making a big stink if I had been in Edmonton?

“The bill shouldn’t be paid and it shouldn’t be coming to me.”

michael.platt@sunmedia.ca