Manitoba hopes bursary will keep emergency medical responders in rural areas

The provincial government will help pay to train emergency medical responders if they agree to work in a rural community for a year.

“We heard you,” Premier Wab Kinew told the Association of Manitoba Municipalities fall convention Wednesday where he announced the plan to address the shortage of EMRs.

He said he’s heard for years that increases in training requirements for the profession, imposed by the former government, have meant many municipalities are underserved.

In 2022, new requirements were introduced to increase training to 320 hours from 120 hours, new annual registration and insurance fees for EMRs and volunteer paramedics were adopted, which many municipalities tried to pay.

Municipal leaders warned the changes would dissuade people from training as EMRs and make it tougher to staff local emergency services.

“I got an earful in opposition at the time about the number of hours almost tripling and how much of a barrier that was to people in your communities being able to respond, the cost going up dramatically, and this contributing to the wait times for (emergency medical services),” Kinew said.

The premier said under the new initiative, students who complete the training will receive a $5,000 bursary by entering a one-year agreement that requires them to work in rural Manitoba.

The hope is that some will stay.

The formal training will be available in Winnipeg and Brandon and at rotating sites, starting with Arborg, the premier said.

The province has partnered with CritiCare Paramedic Academy to offer in-community emergency medical responder training, which will allow students to complete course requirements while supporting the health-care system by supplementing emergency services in rural Manitoba.

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Virden Mayor Tina Williams.

“Our whole end of the province is, as a rule, understaffed,” the mayor said. She recalls a time when local volunteers were emergency medical responders.

“It was people who knew where you lived, and it was also comforting to rural people about seeing faces they know there to help,” Williams said. “When the volunteer part went away, that was a huge detriment to our communities.”

She said she likes the idea of EMRs from Virden training to work in the community. She said paramedics, who have more training and opportunities, are less likely to be local or to stay.

Fifty to 60 EMRs are expected to graduate next fall, complete the Canadian Organization of Paramedic Regulators exam and be eligible to be hired, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said.

The union representing rural EMRs says the NDP government is taking a “quicker, cheaper” approach rather than training and hiring the promised 200 paramedics who have a broader scope of practice.

“In two years, they have added only 18 paramedics… and they still don’t have a plan to retain, train or recruit more,” said Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals.

He said EMRs play an important role, including transporting stable patients, but they don’t have the training to respond to emergency medical calls. Cardiac arrests, severe trauma, violent or unstable patients, complex medical presentations, and obstetrical emergencies require the intervention of two fully trained paramedics, the union said.

“We want to work with government on specific measures to retain and recruit more paramedics and fulfil their promise to rural Manitobans,” Linklater said. Without a plan to staff up paramedics, Wednesday’s announcement will take rural emergency medical services backwards, he said.

“When it comes to health care, they get addicted to cheaper, quicker really quick,” said Linklater. “We have seen in the past where they implement something as temporary and it ends up becoming permanent. Why not just do it right from the get-go? Manitobans want this.”

The health minister told reporters there is a plan.

“The EMR training pathway has a long history in Manitoba of success, of making sure that folks in rural communities and northern communities have low-barrier access to getting their foot in the door to become a paramedic.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca