A day in the life of a Renfrew County paramedic

CTV News Ottawa was invited to ride along with Renfrew County paramedics. (Dylan Dyson/CTV News Ottawa)

The role of a modern day paramedic is changing.

In Renfrew County, gone are the days of waiting in ambulances for 9-1-1 calls.

CTV News Ottawa was given the exclusive opportunity to ride along with Renfrew County Paramedic Services Commander Kerri-Lynn McGrath for a look at a day in the life of a paramedic.

When asked to describe what a day in the life is like, McGrath needed only one word: busy.

McGrath's day starts at 8 a.m. Paramedics are scheduled for 12-hour shifts, but McGrath says days regularly exceed that time.

"Typically, we're seeing now where [paramedics] are dispatched out in the morning and they're not seeing their base until the end of their shift, if their shift ends on time," the 10-year veteran tells CTV News.

As a commander, McGrath's duty is to check in with paramedics at various sites across the county.

"The job of a paramedic has grown vastly over the years."

Home Visits

The day started with a home check-in with a community paramedic.

Community paramedics can make as many as 10 home visits in a day; but they can also only make one that spans 10 hours.

On Thursday, paramedic Justin Jordans, in his second year with the service, did a check-in on a senior citizen taking blood pressure and other readings.

"Sometimes they're rather isolated in their health care journey and they don't have a lot of resources at hand," said Jordans.

Emergency Response

McGrath says between 30 and 40 9-1-1 calls come in across Renfrew County on a daily basis.

Those calls are dispatched among 10 daytime ambulance crews across the region. At night, the number of crews on the road drops to seven.

"We're facing a lot of pressures lately," says McGrath.

"The call volume has increased, the resources have stayed the same, and we're at a point where we're trying to match what we have with the calls that we're receiving."

Acting commander Kody Koepsel was dispatched to a 9-1-1 call involving a senior with a chronic issue that required a hospital visit.

"We have two minutes from the time we hear our alarm at the base to be in our truck on the radio ready to go," the 10-year paramedic explains.

Hospital Duties

When transferring patients to hospitals, paramedics may be required to wait on site with the patient, up to hours at a time, if a hospital bed is not available - a problem that has plagued many hospitals across Ontario.

That takes an ambulance crew off the road until a bed does become available. McGrath believes the service is already understaffed as it is.

Paramedics are also deployed to local hospitals to help triage patients that come in, helping boost low staffing levels that some hospitals may experience.

McGrath says roughly 170 paramedics are employed within the Renfrew County Paramedic Service.

Assessment Centres

Born out of the pandemic and a local Renfrew County creation, RC-VTAC (Renfrew County Virtual Triage and Assessment Centres) operate assessment centres through the region, staffed by paramedics.

These assessment centres operate similarly to walk-in clinics for those without a family doctor. Appointments are required to visit the centres daily.

Paramedics physically assess patients before setting them up on a video call with a local physician.

"We have a very high percentage of the population that doesn't have access to family doctors," said paramedic Jon Paterson, who has been working at the assessment centre in Pembroke for a month.

"This wasn't what I thought I would be doing as a paramedic. I very much was surprised when I came to Renfrew County and there was a lot of other options available for paramedics."

The range of duties required by paramedics has grown substantially in a health care world that has become understaffed since the pandemic.

Koepsel believes the public perception of what a paramedic is nowadays doesn't match the new reality.

"I think a lot of the time we take on roles similar to a family doctor; we're taking on roles of a social worker, mediating disputes. It's not just responding to emergencies and traumatic injuries."

"There's a lot that encompasses what we do."