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NWT
A new NWT Mine Training Society partnership is generating local emergency medical response jobs in the territory's mining and exploration industry.

Students rescue student Colin Beaulieu during a simulated exercise as part of an Arctic Response Canada Ltd. emergency medical responder course in Behchoko last month. - photo courtesy Arctic Response

Northern safety training company Arctic Response Canada Ltd. is delivering the Mine Training Society advanced first aid courses for exploration camp first aid attendants--training workers in communities where there is high exploration activity, such as Fort Liard and Fort Simpson.

"We're looking at exploration camps," said Hilary Jones, general manager at the Mine Training Society.

"We've been working closely with (Arctic Response) in getting emergency medical responder training into the smaller communities in the North."

The program is targeting communities that don't necessarily have full-time nurse or ambulance services, in order to also build pre-hospital care capacity in the communities, said Tony Clarke, Arctic Response industrial safety trainer.

"Even if all of (the students) don't complete the course, when we train 10 people as emergency medical responders into a community--whether it's Rae Edzo or even Yellowknife for that matter--that's 10 people who have training, who can help out in the event of an emergency," Clarke said. "When we go into a lot of these communities the resources there to respond are limited, so people like the Mine Training Society and ourselves we're obviously giving workers the skills to get the job done."

The company recently teamed up with the Academy of Emergency Training in British Columbia to offer their 90- to 100-hour emergency medical responders (EMR) certification, which is a more advanced certification than the 40-hour advanced first aid course previously offered in the communities.

"(The advanced first-aid course) gives the person a lot of skill sets but it doesn't quite prepare them for that moment when they're a camp cook who's done two or three patients who has to deal with something major and then gets weathered in so they have to deal with the patient for a day or so," Clarke said."

The emergency medical responders training is the basic level needed to operate an ambulance, he added, and prepares people to respond to injury and trauma in remote locations for extended periods of time in an emergency.

"They're learning how to deal with everything from a paper cut to emergency child birth," he said.

The Mine Training Society and Arctic Response are planning to offer EMR courses starting in January, possibly in Trout Lake, Fort Liard, and Nahanni Butte.

Clarke said the target is to have 100 emergency medical responders trained in the NWT in the next year.

The federal government, in addition to exploration companies Avalon Rare Metals Inc., Canadian Zinc, and Devonian Metals Inc., are among the participants of the training program so far.

The EMR training is in compliance with mining industry and Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission health and safety legislation, Jones said.

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