Training paramedics closer to home

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This article was published 24/08/2023 (866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A paramedic who works in Southwest Manitoba on a casual basis, is one of the creators of a new program that will train Primary Care Paramedics (PCP) in Brandon as soon as 2024.

Elite Safety Services is a safety training business that has been operating in the Wheat City since 2003 when two career firefighter paramedics decided to provide a wide range of emergency response, training, and prevention services.

Last year, the company offered the Emergency Medical Responder program for the first time, so this next training will help address the paramedic shortage in the province, according to Mike Wiens, paramedic, and lead instructor for the PCP program.

“We desperately, desperately need another PCP training course, especially in this part of the province. I work casually with Shared Health Emergency Response Services in Southwest Manitoba, and we are extremely short of paramedics,” Wiens said.

Paramedics are licenced healthcare professionals trained to assess patients’ needs and provide medical treatment in various areas including, ground and air ambulances, in fire departments, as emergency medical dispatchers, and in collaboration with other healthcare providers.

A paramedic in Manitoba is licenced as either a Primary Care Paramedic (PCP) or an Advanced Care Paramedic (ACP).

The only two programs in Manitoba that have PCP training are Red River College and another private company called Criti Care, which are both in Winnipeg and a detriment to those who want to work and live in rural areas, added Wiens.

“I see a lot of new paramedics coming out of the Winnipeg programs and at the end of the day, they want to get back closer to their families where they grew up, and that’s understandable. So, let’s train them in this area and then maybe we can pull from the community and keep them closer to home and make them want to stay and be part of their community,” Wiens said.

Educational requirements for potential students include a high school diploma with senior level math, English, and either chemistry or biology, six credits of human anatomy and physiology courses and a medical terminology course.

Student can select from two PCP delivery models offered by Elite Safety Services.

One will be full-time Monday to Friday at the business’s location in Brandon’s east end. The other option, called a blended model, will be distance learning online, with students gathering on weekends to learn practical skills, said Sara Walker, Elite’s risk management supervisor.

“We’ll have eight seats per program, or per cohort, with the full-time course in the range of 11 to 12 months. As for blended learning, it will be a fairly strict schedule that students are required to maintain, but we’re trying to keep it under two years. We’re still working with the College of Paramedics of Manitoba on some of the details.”

Accreditation or approval for the new PCP program comes from the College of Paramedics of Manitoba, a regulatory body that sets the requirements for paramedics and ensures the standards of practice are met and code of ethics are followed, with the mandate of protecting the public interest.

It’s a two-part process to become accredited, said Trish Bergal, executive director, registrar, College of Paramedics of Manitoba.

The first approval is of the program and curriculum – or courses, while the second approval must come from an external organization that is a division of Accreditation Canada.

Once those steps are complete, comes the accreditation cycle, Bergal said, including the application, self assessment, submission of materials and review of materials.

“The full accreditation never happens until a program is actually up and running, because part of the process is to look at outcomes. So, it’s a little bit of show us enough that you’re a credible program before you get going and then we’ll circle back to you and continue to work together to make sure that you’re meeting the requirements. There are no red flags, and we wouldn’t allow them to continue to proceed in their implementation plan if there were any concerns at this point,” Bergal said.

Wiens is already working on places for the paramedics-in-training to take their practicum, which allows students to use what they’ve learned in class and apply it to a real medical environment.