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One year later: N.S. graduates dozens of new paramedics, emergency medical responders
A year into its efforts to beef up recruitment of paramedics and emergency medical responders by offering free tuition to students, the province says it's starting to see the fruits of its labour.
Jeff Fraser, the senior executive director for Emergency Health Services at the Department of Health, said Monday that recent numbers showed vacancy rates had been cut in half in April 2025 compared to the previous April.
"We're really happy with the results we've seen to date," Fraser told CBC's Information Morning Nova Scotia.
Through its incentive program, the province offered to cover the full tuition for more than 460 people who wanted to train to become a primary care paramedic or an emergency medical responder. In exchange, graduates have to agree to stay in the province and work — paramedics for four years and emergency medical responders for two.
To date, 119 paramedics and 37 emergency medical responders have completed their training and are working in the field, said Fraser.
He said the province has awarded a total of 319 bursaries, 259 for would-be paramedics and 60 for emergency medical responders.
"We're seeing a big difference," said Kevin MacMullin, the business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 727, which represents paramedics in Nova Scotia.
"We've now got schools in places like Yarmouth where we never had a class before and that's important because people in that region can't always travel up to Halifax and stay in the Halifax region and take the primary care program," he told Information Morning on Thursday.
Both programs offer class time and hands-on learning in the field, with the paramedic training lasting 50 weeks and the emergency medical responder training covering three months.
Emergency medical responders are trained to work alongside paramedics to provide basic emergency care. They can also assist with hospital patient transfers and in the offload areas in emergency departments.
"There's usually a backup of paramedics waiting to get offloaded and that's one of our primary disadvantages at the present time because we want to get our trucks back out on the road where they should be to respond to emergencies," said MacMullin.
The province will continue to offer the incentive program this year into the next, said Fraser.
"That will bring us the stability in our workforce," he said. "We'll continue to re-evaluate and make recommendations to government as time goes on."
