Letter of the day

D10

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To The Editor:

This letter is in response to the article "Paramedic failures high" in the July 15 News Today section. This article states that there is an increasingly high failure rate for the paramedic licensing test this year.

I am an out-of-province paramedic, who was born in Fredericton and raised in Moncton. I came to Moncton this summer to write the provincial licensing test in an attempt to work as a New Brunswick paramedic. I have graduated from a two-year paramedic program in Ontario and am certified to work in that province as well.

Currently in the province of New Brunswick, students are only required to take a one year course, and then write the 200-250 question licensing exam. It is in my opinion that with my education and having passed a six-hour, 400 question certification test in Ontario, that I would have no problem becoming licensed in New Brunswick.

I spent many, many weeks preparing for the test and trying to research any information I could find about the way the paramedic world works in New Brunswick. Neither the Paramedic Association of New Brunswick, nor the Ambulance New Brunswick websites or staff were of any help in learning about the way things are done here or how to prepare for this test.

I was very disappointed with the lack of assistance I was given from the Paramedic Association while preparing for this test. After having paid fees of over $300 and travel expenses, I am one of the 40 prospective paramedics who were unsuccessful this year and feel that this was not due to my own lack of knowledge in the field.

It is in my professional and personal opinion that the test given to prospective paramedics to "test their competency" has, in fact, nothing to do with paramedic competency whatsoever. Rather, it has more to do with whether a person can memorize random facts and irrelevant and obscure ideas that do not get at the "meat and potatoes" of a paramedic's area of discipline.

Furthermore, there were also questions posed related specifically to the province of New Brunswick, in which the information to answer these questions is not readily available for out-of-province paramedics like myself. The association offers study material on their website that is very, very outdated (from 1992) and was not relevant to any of the questions asked on the exam.

I am not alone in my concerns with this test and the entire process with The Paramedic Association of New Brunswick. Throughout this experience I have been in contact with many other paramedics from out-of-province also wishing to work in N.B. who have been unsuccessful with the test. These are paramedics who have also become certified in their own provinces and should have no trouble becoming certified in New Brunswick.

The fact that I am not alone and the failure rate is so high shows that there may be a problem with the system and not with the prospective paramedics.

It is in my opinion that changes need to be made to this process and that the public should know that the failure rate is not necessarily due to the prospective paramedics' lack of knowledge, but perhaps due to the current licensing test itself.

It is my understanding that N.B. is looking to hire a great deal of paramedics in the next couple of years. But by using this current process, the province and the public will be denied access to a number of fully qualified and highly knowledgeable paramedics.

Laura Rimmer,

Peterborough, Ont