The Association of Allied Health Professionals is deeply frustrated and discouraged after being excluded from a recent government retention effort aimed at supporting frontline paramedics.
The problem, says the AAHP, is that incentives and support is being provided to road ambulance services, but medical flight specialists have been left in the cold.
AAHP, which represents medical flight specialists says the problem must be addressed immediately.
The provincial government recently integrated road and air ambulance services across the province into a single system, and recently announced the expansion of an emergency stroke program, making medical transport available to all eligible patients across the province who meet the appropriate medical criteria.
Union president Gord Piercey says medical flight specialists are a critical element of emergency care.
“These people are providing travel to critically injured people,” Piercey told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly. “Chances are, of there’s a situation where travel is essential, and time is critical, medical flight specialists are somewhere in that equation.”
He says MFS members have suffered “years of disrespect from the system” and recruitment and retention has long been an issue “and then to see the response on Monday from government that excluded them from recent initiatives? It’s incomprehensible to us.”
