Saskatoon paramedics have voted in favour of job action amid a staffing crunch they say has pushed first responders to their breaking point and left some patients waiting hours for an ambulance. Russell Grant, president of the Saskatoon Paramedic Association — IAFF Local 3270 — says members have been without a contract since March 2024. Initial bargaining ended up in mediation, while discussions about compensation came to an impasse. “To be frank, enough is enough,” said Grant, who revealed the association held three in-person votes Tuesday, with members in the room unanimously voting in favour of job action. He says Medavie Health Services West, which operates the city’s ambulance service, is struggling to hire and retain enough paramedics and dispatchers to handle the volume of calls for service. “We are routinely short ambulances on the streets. We have calls that are holding in queue for members of the public waiting upwards of sometimes hours, unfortunately, for paramedics to arrive at their door.” The Saskatoon Paramedic Association is calling on Medavie to take immediate meaningful action with a concrete strategy to recruit and retain staff, and more collaborative support for mental and physical health. He says it’s not uncommon to sign on for a night shift with multiple calls already in the queue. “You can’t help but see that and be like, ‘Oh, man, you know, this is going to be a while before we get through this.’ And then you go call to call to call to call,” he says. “You might not get any appropriate time for a meal break. You might not get any appropriate time for decompressing or debriefing with … your colleagues after a tough call. And then that is just the pace that it goes for the entire 12 hours.” Grant says the hardest part is facing a patient when you know they’ve been waiting so long for care. “It is very hard to walk into those houses and look someone in the eye that has been waiting for an ambulance for multiple hours,” he said. “It hurts us. It morally hurts us to be exposed to that on a daily basis. And people are starting to realize that, like, we have a number of staff on mental health leaves, various medical leaves, like an unprecedented number, I would say.” Can paramedics walk off the job? Both Medavie and the paramedic association were clear that emergency medical services will not be disrupted, and Saskatoon residents can still call 911 if they’re in crisis — emergency responders are bound by an essential services agreement. In an emailed statement, Medavie said the bargaining process is ongoing and no job action has been taken yet. “We want to reassure the community that there are no changes to 911. Please continue to call as usual if you are experiencing an emergency.” Grant says the essential services agreement puts paramedics in a tough spot. The union is still discussing what job action would look like, but the message from the group is clear — something has to change. Pay rates for paramedics in Saskatoon currently lag behind other first responders like firefighters and police by about 30 per cent, according to Grant. “We lose a lot of paramedics in Saskatoon specifically to allied services or agencies. So, Saskatoon Police Service, Saskatoon Fire and Protective Services, we lose a lot of staff to nursing,” he said. “But we do also lose a lot of staff just who leave this type of work entirely after sometimes quite a short period of time. Unfortunately. Like whether that just be the call volume, the level of burnout that they experience. Kind of hard to say. Or it’s probably all of those things, to be honest.”
