The County of Perth are actively recruiting primary care paramedics.
An "expansion of paramedic services" in the county has led to some shuffling of positions and the need to backfill the part-time compliment, Mike Adair, chief, Perth County paramedic service, and Tristan Barter, assistant deputy chief, performance and development, said in an interview with Stratford Today.
The county are trying to hire 20 new part-time paramedics to add to a team that includes more than 100 paramedics, including more than 60 full-time equivalent positions.
Perth County Paramedic Services started a recruitment drive on Tuesday and it runs until Sept. 25.
The county's paramedics respond to more than 10,000 calls per year. The service operates out of a headquarters in Stratford, and it has four community satellite bases, 11 ambulances and two command vehicles.
"One of the coolest things that is happening right now is the expansion of paramedic services across the province and Perth County is in the same boat," Adair said.
Adair said the mobile integrated health/community paramedicine program that started with just two paramedics has increased to seven full-time staff and nine part-timers.
Community paramedics provide 'immediate or scheduled primary, urgent, and/or specialized healthcare to vulnerable patient populations while focusing on improving equity in healthcare', as part of the integrated team. The service was well-utilized during the pandemic and grew from humble roots as the team realized more staff was needed.
Adair and Barter said the program is making an impact in the community.
"We have a partnership with social services, where we are making impacts to individuals and working on things like calling 911 when it’s appropriate and getting people to the hospital when they need to and getting paramedics diverted from emergency rooms (if possible)."
The county's compliment of paramedics also includes at least 10 acting commanders, who 'provide ongoing supervision and leadership for paramedics and students, including orientation and training of new staff in job specific hazard recognition and control and health and safety policies and procedures, planning/scheduling of work'.
Acting commanders are responsible for 'day-to-day operations and deployment of supplies, equipment, vehicles and emergency resources'.
Interest in these specialty teams has seen some shifting around of personnel and the need for more staff.
The pandemic impacted the paramedic ranks in the county, as well, Adair and Barter said.
"In terms of the COVID pandemic, there has been a lot of movement of paramedics between different services. There is a shortage of healthcare workers, many types of workers across Canada...we are in the same boat, so you might see some of our part-time staff that typically work two jobs, choose to work one, or part-time staff might move to another community, like London."
Some staff re-aligned their goals and tried other opportunities when new positions came up.
"As we continue to grow it’s important to bring in staff to back fill positions. Part of the hiring process helps us to support that."
The part-time hires can work their way up to full-time, Adair said, by getting on-the-job experience and applying for full-time positions when they arise.
Adair said the provincial government has also helped by increasing funding at the post-secondary level, opening up 300 more spaces in paramedic programs.
“There is a significant demand for paramedics in communities across the province, and our government is making it as easy as possible for those who want to train and work in this important profession,” Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, said in an announcement earlier this summer.
Colleges offering expanded enrolment in paramedic programs for the 2023-24 school year include Georgian. Algonquin, Cambrian, Centennial, Boréal, Collège La Cité, Conestoga, Confederation, Durham, Fanshawe, Lambton, Northern, St. Clair, and St. Lawrence.
Georgian College president and CEO Kevin Weaver said paramedic graduates are in high demand by the many regional health services they partner with.
"We’ve had a 100 per cent employment rate in the program since 2017 and these new spaces for 20 additional paramedic students at Georgian will better serve our community needs for a highly skilled health-care workforce, as well as help more students achieve their career aspirations,” Weaver said via a news release following the announcement.
Adair said he is very optimistic they can fill all 20 spots.
"We have had the opportunity since COVID to rebuild the framework of our recruitment and orientation process to hone in on certain populations of paramedics that we think would be a good fit here.
"When we revamped our recruitment process, we started taking into consideration the constraints for already certified and working paramedics at other services to make it a much more streamlined process for those people to apply and start working here."
As part of the recruitment drive, the county's paramedic services will take part in a job fair in Toronto on Sept. 17.
More information is available at www.perthcounty.ca/paramedics.
Interested candidates can visit www.perthcounty.ca/employment to apply.
- with files from Village Media
