Vital paramedic services honoured over recognition week in Medicine Hat

Paramedics are the heroes who respond to and provide every patient with the right care.

Alynne Baiton, advanced care paramedic, said this year’s theme is ‘We Care. For Everyone’ — and said that means everyone.

“We respond to everybody. Any age, any gender, race, whatever- it doesn’t matter to us,” she said Sunday.

Baiton said when paramedics are dispatched to an event, they don’t know who they’re going for until they get that information.

“It doesn’t doesn’t matter who you are. You’re going to receive the best level care that I can provide through all the training that I’ve had,” she said.

“We have to just care about everybody the way we would care about ourselves,” she added.

“That’s the message we want people to know, that we’re here to help.”

Baiton said paramedics will serve others in their most vulnerable time, and do what they can to make that moment in their lives where they’re having an emergency easier and calmer to have them around.

Baiton said everyone recieves the best level of care from paramedics, no matter who they are. Jayk Sterkenburg/CHAT News

From May 18 to 24, this week is a time to recognize those who provide vital emergency services, and to better understand the important role they play.

Alberta’s EMS system is comprised of Emergency Medical Dispatchers, Inter-facility Transportation, community-based First Responders, and EMS practitioners in ground and air transport ambulances.

Baiton said the scope of services is quite different.

With a display at the Medicine Hat Mall on Sunday, she and other paramedics were able to demonstrate how difficult efforts such as administering CPR can be.

She said there’s a lot that’s challenging about the job that the general public likely doesn’t typically consider.

“There’s a lot of physical challenges being a paramedic,” she said.

“Our equipment that we carry is heavy. We have to be able to lift people and carry them out of their homes or whatever that looks like,” she added.

Baiton said people at the mall would try to pick up their LIFEPAK defibrillator and say it’s heavier than they expected, and say “You guys have to carry this in and out?”

“Then there’s also the obvious [part] of that we’re seeing potentially traumatic events too, and people in their worst of times like that, which can be a bit of a challenge,” she said.

A LIFEPAK defibrillator sits on display at the Medicine Hat Mall. Jayk Sterkenburg/CHAT News

Baiton said among the daily challenges paramedics face, it is an especially busy service in Medicine Hat.

The public can express their gratitude to paramedics with an online thank-you note, because sometimes emergency response happens so quick.

by Jayk Sterkenburg

Vital paramedic services honoured over recognition week in Medicine Hat

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