May 24, 2022
EDMONTON

Support for EMS is urgently needed this Paramedic Services Week

Friends of Medicare's statement on Paramedic Services Week 2022:

This week is Paramedic Services Week, and Friends of Medicare would like to take this opportunity to recognize the instrumental role that paramedics play in our health care system—and especially when a public health crisis is at hand. 

Alberta’s health care workers continue to be pushed to their limit on the front lines day after day, as our public health care system continues to endure the impacts of this pandemic and an utter lack of leadership from our government. 

Paramedics, and all of our vital front-line workers, deserve more than empty platitudes and gimmicky government websites to “thank them” this week. They deserve tangible political action to show that their crucial role in our public health care system is truly valued. Health care workers deserve to work with proper staffing, in safer, sustainable working conditions to address the mounting crisis of consistent red alerts in Alberta’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system.

After all that paramedics and their colleagues have endured these past years, the best recognition and celebration would be for this government to finally stop proposing wage rollbacks at the bargaining table. Rather than pursuing their destructive agenda of EMS privatization, the government must listen to workers to begin to resolve the crisis in EMS.

Paramedics are there for Albertans during our most urgent health care needs, and now it’s time that we are there for them, by demanding our government take urgent action to support EMS.

In commemoration of Paramedic Services Week 2022, Friends of Medicare extends our thanks to all of Alberta’s paramedics for the vital work you do and the many sacrifices you make. We greatly appreciate you all!

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