It marks one year since the community paramedic program started as a pilot in P.A. (file photo/paNOW Staff)

By Michael Joel-Hansen

Community Health

Pilot community paramedic program marks anniversary

May 13, 2019 | 3:30 PM

Parkland Ambulance and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) are marking one year since launching the Community Paramedic Pilot Program.

The initiative provides treatment to residents on location as opposed to taking them to the hospital.

Brody Anderson, a community paramedic with Parkland Ambulance said they were successful when it came to treating residents on site.

“As of today, we’ve done 400 calls, 400 different runs we call them and we had about an 80 per cent rate of keeping people out of the hospitals,” he said.

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Joining Anderson on the team were Sheldon Hirschfeld, Oliver Jantz, with Jordan Ambrose working in a supervisory role. All three of the medics have training as advanced care paramedics, which allows them to dispense more drugs and provide other forms of care. Along with extra training, all three have over 10 years of experience.

One of the challenges the team had to deal with when they started out was building relationships with those in the care homes, which is quite different from working on the street.

“I need to get to know these people, I need to understand their day to day, so that was a challenge at the beginning in just getting the residents and the care staff to develop a trust with us,” Anderson said.

Anderson said in certain cases they will work closely with family physicians to develop a care plan if needed. He added physicians have been good about helping them out.

“We’ll call them on their cellphones and if they don’t pick up right away, they’re really good at calling us back,” he said.

Being able to provide treatment to people on location is important according to Anderson because it helps to relieve the stress on emergency rooms and hospitals in general. Looking forward, Anderson said he is hopeful about the program continuing and possibly being expanded to areas outside P.A.

“I can’t see this going away,” he said.

One care home in the city appreciates the work of Anderson and his colleagues. Minda Medina, a supervisor at Nelson Care home had high praise for the medics and the work they do.

“The community paramedics program is really helping us a lot,” she said.

Medina said by bringing care to residents as opposed to taking them from the facility, the process is easier on both residents and their families. She added the medics are easy to speak to and do a good job at communicating with doctors.

“I like them so much,” she said.

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MichaelJoel.Hansen@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @mjhskcdn