WFPS provided with alternative to maintain and renew paramedic licences

MEDIA RELEASE:

WINNIPEG July 28, 2006 - The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS) has reached an important step in its ongoing service improvement efforts: ensuring that Primary Care Paramedics working on fire trucks renew and maintain their paramedic licences, as required by Manitoba Health.

“Our primary concern, in everything we do, is the care and safety of our patients and citizens,” said Fire & Paramedic Chief Wes Shoemaker. “Calls for medical assistance continue to increase dramatically, and our firefighters who are also trained and licensed as Primary Care Paramedics play an important role in providing emergency medical services. Approximately 65 per cent of the time, a fire apparatus is the first to arrive at the scene of a high priority medical emergency.”

On April 1, 2006, the Government of Manitoba introduced new legislation that requires a licensed medical provider on every fire apparatus. Given the number and types of calls that firefighters and paramedics respond to in Winnipeg, this licensed medical provider must be at the level of a Primary Care Paramedic. The WFPS currently has 60 such paramedics on staff as firefighter paramedics (firefighters who are trained and licensed as paramedics, working on fire apparatus).

In order to meet these new requirements, WFPS Primary Care Paramedics – including the highly skilled paramedics working on firetrucks – are being offered an alternative to having to write a test every three years in order to maintain their paramedic licence. By entering into the Alternate Route to Maintenance of Licensure (ARML), the Primary Care Paramedics can renew and maintain their licences by tracking the skills they perform everyday at medical calls.

“In essence, ARML is an effective way to maintain and renew a licence by tracking and assessing every skill provided at every call attended by paramedics,” explained Dr. Rob Grierson, Medical Director for the WFPS. “ARML eliminates the need to write a test every three years, encourages ongoing skills maintenance, and helps to provide the highest possible level of care.”

The WFPS is asking its firefighter paramedics to take advantage of the opportunity as offered by the Province to enter into ARML. The firefighters’ union, however, disputes the City’s right to deploy firefighters in a dual role as trained and licensed firefighter paramedics – as mandated by Council and required by the Province – and has advised its members not to sign the document that enrols them into ARML.

“The trend across all fields of medicine is ongoing skills maintenance and continuing medical education, shifting away from examination as the sole method for maintaining licences,” said Dr. Grierson. “We currently track all skills provided by paramedics at every medical call, so enabling this information to be used to renew paramedic licences is a progressive and efficient approach.”

“By entering into ARML these firefighter paramedics will continue to perform their vital, life-saving service to the citizens of Winnipeg,” said Chief Shoemaker. “In our business, every second counts. Having a Primary Care Paramedic on that firetruck could mean the difference between life and death.”