Shauna ward spells out the scenario ,  Sherry Hunter is the ‘patient’ while  ‘medical attendants’ Bill Bristow and  Ron Vanzetta assess her condition. – photo 250News

Prince George, B.C.-  Nine students  are receiving special Emergency  Medical Response training at  the College of New Caledonia.

The  program is aimed at  having  people in remote communities  have the first step  in training  to  lead them to  a possible career as a paramedic.

The program has just wrapped up  week 3 of the  four week program.

“It’s a collaboration  between the Justice Institute of B.C. and the Metis Nation of B.C.” says Rikky Beaudet, program coordinator for the Metis Nation.  “It’s a fantastic way to assist aboriginal people in getting training that will help them get jobs in the oil and gas industry as well as  get them back to their home communities where they can do community response.”

She says from a rural  perspective, these students won’t be trained as paramedics to  provide ambulance  service,  “This is the first step in paramedic training,  it is  emergency medical response.  They wouldn’t qualify to be a paramedic in the City of Prince George, but,  they  could offer  emergency response in their First Nations Communities.  So  if there was a need to get an ambulance from Prince George to  somewhere North,  these people could be offering some care until that ambulance arrived.”

The program is one of several in BC  which the  government is spending $5.1 million dollars to  deliver over the course of the year.  Prince George, Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris says the  program was not designed to  offset the lack of ambulance service in  remote and rural communities, “Probably it will  help that (situation) in the long run if they choose to go in that direction,  communities that don’t have resources for an ambulance station would benefit from this.”