NEW After hearing thousands of last words, this hospital chaplain has advice for the living
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
Staff running pools across Canada are trying to entice people to work as lifeguards amid a shortage, the Lifesaving Society says.
Pool and beach staffing can be somewhat challenging at the best of times, since the job often appeals to high school students between 16 to 18 who then leave to go away for post-secondary education, said Stephanie Bakalar, spokesperson for the Lifesaving Society Ontario.
But COVID-19 made things worse.
"You have those couple of years where hardly anyone got certified because the pools (were) open a little bit here and there, but not consistently enough to be able to really plan and run all these (training) programs," Bakalar said.
"It's not like we could just put everyone on Zoom and say, 'Oh, you could be a lifeguard,"' she said.
"You need to be physically in the water."
On Friday, the Ontario government lowered the minimum age requirement for lifeguards from 16 to 15 years old in a move aimed at addressing the staffing shortage.
Municipal governments and recreation centres have been getting "creative" to attract more people to the job while still ensuring they meet the rigorous training required by the Lifesaving Society, Bakalar said.
Christine Pelletier, director of aquatics, fitness and health at Dovercourt Recreation Centre in Ottawa, said they had already hired 15-year-olds who had completed their certification and gave them jobs as assistant instructors until they turned 16.
Another strategy is to train and hire older swimmers, Pelletier said.
Sometimes they're people who are now retired and used to lifeguard when they were younger, she said.
"Or (they're) people who are master swimmers who already have the swimming ability and maybe are looking to try something new, a new challenge to become a lifeguard for the first time in their lives."
Older adults who had been certified lifeguards in the past would just need to be recertified, Pelletier said. Others who have the swimming ability could take the required lifeguard training on their own before they're examined so they wouldn't have to take classes with "a bunch of 13-year-olds," she said.
There have been certified lifeguards in Canada who are around 80 years old, Bakalar said.
"There's a minimum age, but there's no maximum age," she said.
"As long as you can meet all of those criteria and you're physically able and you have the right judgment and skill, you can lifeguard and every two years you're going to recertify and re-demonstrate those skills."
Completing all the training to become a lifeguard can cost more than $1,000, so offering free training can be an important recruitment strategy, said Lenea Grace, executive director of the Lifesaving Society of BC and Yukon.
The Lifesaving Society provides lifeguards at BC Hydro-owned Buntzen Lake and Hayward Lake, she said, so the society covers the cost of their waterfront lifeguarding course, she said.
Municipalities such as New Westminster, B.C., recently offered paid training or scholarships "to help people attain the certifications they need," Grace said.
Such programs can help lower-income people who want to be lifeguards but "may have had cost as a barrier," she said.
Not all Canadian municipalities are facing a lifeguard shortage.
In an emailed statement to The Canadian Press on Friday, the city of Toronto said it has recruited "approximately 2,400 certified aquatic staff to supervise leisure and instructional programs at indoor and outdoor pools and waterfront beach operations."
"While City of Toronto programs have an appropriate complement of lifeguards ready for this summer -- thanks to all of the proactive work that has gone on in the background for the past two years to address the shortages created by the pandemic -- recruitment for all recreation staff, including lifeguards, remains ongoing," the statement said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2023.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
French police cordoned off the Iranian consulate in Paris on Friday, where a man was threatening to blow himself up, Europe 1 radio and BFM TV.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
An apparent Israeli drone attack on Iran saw troops fire air defences at a major air base and a nuclear site early Friday morning near the central city of Isfahan, an assault coming in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Canadian banks that refuse to identify the carbon rebate by name when doing direct deposits are forcing the government to change the law to make them do it, says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
Prince Harry, the son of King Charles III and fifth in line to the British throne, has formally confirmed he is now a U.S. resident.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.