New mental wellness program aims to address challenges first-responders face

THUNDER BAY -- As a paramedic, Rob Moquin has seen the worst the city has to offer.

Last summer, after a high-profile case shook him to his core, he even had to take time off the job to set his mind straight, not unlike soldiers faced with post-traumatic stress syndrome after the horrors of war set in.

Moquin hopes a new mental wellness program, being put together jointly by Superior North EMS, its paramedics and Lakehead University, will help better equip first-responders to deal with the impact of what they’re faced with on the job.

“I think society as a whole has just expected so much from first responders,” Moquin said on Wednesday, taking a break from a day-long mental wellness classroom session.

“They’ve expected us to go from call to call to call and just pack it away and deal with it ourselves. We’re seeing a lot of first responders these days taking their own lives.”

Over a 10-week stretch last year, according to a Global News report, 13 of Canada’s first responders – which include police and firefighters – took their own lives.

Moquin said it’s tough for paramedics to sustain the high-intensity the job requires, leading many to abandon the field.
He’s seen the difficulty himself, pointing to last summer’s incident.

“I decided I couldn’t be at work for awhile because I was suffering some of the effects of what we are talking about today,” Moquin said. “It was fatigue, and irritability and just kind of distancing myself from my job. It was better that I got out for a while through some avenues that we’re doing here to get back into the game so to speak.

“It doesn’t do anybody any justice if we’re struggling ourselves.”

Jo-Ann Vis, an associate professor and graduate co-ordinator at Lakehead University’s school of social work, said there are three prongs of research going into the new program, which she hopes to deliver back to EMS by January 2016.

In addition to looking at existing literature, a pilot study with a small group of local paramedics was conducted last year.

The third-part is participatory, with feedback being collected from the first responders themselves.

It’s the latter that’s the most important, Vis said.

“One of the things the researchers told us is a lot of the programs currently being offered for first responders is really based on outside experts saying this is going to be important,” Vis said. “We find that paramedics don’t access it or it doesn’t end up being as effective as we’d like or think that it is.”

Superior North EMS Chief Norm Gale said the project is being supported by funding provided by the City of Thunder Bay, though he did not reveal the amount.

Gale said while the program’s end goal is to help paramedics cope, the research itself could have much wider-reaching implications elsewhere.

“Paramedics observe bad things that happen to good people. These things have a one-time impact, but they also have a cumulative impact over time,” Gale said. “So what we’re doing here is working with the paramedics to create a program that they will find useful that helps them have long careers that are productive.

“They can continue to contribute to society, but also have happy lives.”