Violence in the workplace for many health-care workers is an ongoing issue, but over the last year, paramedics in Frontenac County have noticed an increase.
The service’s deputy chief of operations, Gale Chevalier, says paramedics have been the subject of threats and violence.
“I think that we have seen an increase in the amount of violence recently in Frontenac County and we’re not exactly sure the reason behind that.”
In August, two paramedics were threatened by a man with a knife at a hotel.
The man was subsequently arrested and charged.
In October last year, paramedics were at risk again while attending to a patient at a baseball game at Kingston’s Megaffin Park, said Chevalier.
“Bystanders became aggressive and began threatening the paramedics and actually physically assaulted them.”
Over the last three months, paramedics have also been verbally threatened and abused on Wolfe Island.
One incident occurred only a week ago in public, and a police investigation is now underway.
Chevalier says it’s unfortunate that part of a frontline responder’s training includes protecting themselves.
Frontenac Paramedic Services provides what Chevalier calls self-defence training.
“Focused initially on verbal, de-escalating the situation so that hopefully it doesn’t come to violence and then focuses on techniques to get themselves away from the violence and out of the situation.”
Paramedics are also equipped with the ability to summon police if a situation becomes dangerous, says Chevalier.
“Paramedics carry a radio that has an emergency button on it that they can activate that notifies police to respond immediately.”
The paramedic service already has well-established mental-health protocols like peer support and taking paramedics off the road to rest them after dealing with difficult and traumatic calls.
“We talk about the mental wellness of our paramedics, having to be afraid that they are going to be attacked physically or verbally on a call doesn’t help that at all and we just need to get the word out that it’s just not acceptable.”
A workplace violence expert has also been engaged to do assessments of various locations like the Leon’s Centre, the overdose prevention sight and the paramedic station on Wolfe Island to make them safer for first responders.