Like in many companies, and especially those in the healthcare sector, the labour shortage was a major challenge for Urgences-santé and its health communications centre in 2022 and 2023.

In light of the diversified job market and strong post-pandemic economic recovery, it was difficult to recruit emergency medical dispatchers, and many call-takers and pre-hospital dispatchers in Montreal and Laval were leaving their jobs.

There have been consequences for our emergency medical dispatchers—the frontline pre-hospital responders—including overwork, burnout, reduced job quality and compulsory overtime. This is the daily reality, and it’s demoralizing. We knew we had to think long and hard about how effective our hiring and onboarding programs were. Before we could introduce innovative solutions, we knew we needed to deliver an agile response, in spite of the budgetary, union and time constraints.

We launched a pilot project in December 2023, to hire emergency pre-hospital care students working toward a Diploma of College Studies as emergency medical dispatchers during their studies—and prepare them to become paramedics. It was only natural to pursue a project that involved hiring from a pool of potential candidates who were already committed to a career in the field—by bringing them on board with Quebec’s largest emergency pre-hospital care service in Quebec to gain experience first as emergency medical dispatchers, and then as paramedics.

After holding a recruitment drive, we selected 27 students to join the program and onboarded them in 2 cohorts in January and June 2023. The following spring, after training and qualifying as emergency medical dispatchers, they joined the health communications centre to help respond to emergency pre-hospital calls and dispatch resources.

Lead:
Jean-Pierre Rouleau, Chief of Service

Contributor:
Stéphanie Ogé, Supervisor, Health Communication Center Directorate