Interim manager at the Kamloops Dispatch Operations Centre Paul Alberts.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

BC Emergency Health Services is looking to hire full-time emergency medical call takers at the Kamloops Dispatch Operations Centre.

“Anyone in the community looking for a new job or challenge this is an option for them,” said interim manager at the centre, Paul Alberts.  “If you're uncertain, just apply, get that exposure and see if it's for you. You’re going to be part of the big picture of getting someone help in their time of need.”

An EMCT is the first point of contact when callers dial 9-1-1 for an ambulance. They provide telephone support to the public in emergency medical situations, and are the connection between the caller, dispatch team, paramedic crews, and hospitals.

A likely job candidate needs basic first aid training, a typing speed of 30 words per minute and a lot of compassion.

“If someone wants to try something new and can handle shift work they just have to have the resiliency to take 50 calls per day and have the same level of compassion on the first call as they do on the last,” Alberts said. 

Kamloops is one of three dispatch operations centres in the province with the other two in Vancouver and Victoria. They operate 24 hours per day, seven days per week. The Kamloops centre dispatches all of the ambulances outside of the lower mainland and Vancouver Island in roughly 92 stations that are divided into five coverage areas.

“It’s a very large geographical area these people are looking after,” Alberts said. “We have dispatch assistants who answer some of the calls to help out some of our (ambulance) crews calling in, or hospitals looking for times of different transfers.”

This photo shows Emergency Medical Call Takers working at the Kamloops Dispatch Operations Centre.

(SHANNON AINSLIE / iNFOnews.ca)

The Kamloops centre takes in roughly a quarter of the 911 calls made in the province with more than 2,000 calls coming in for help per day.

“Throughout the day you’re answering calls from Nelson to Vancouver to Kamloops to Prince George, which is a cool experience. You’re helping someone out from one corner to the next.”

There is a long, thorough training period for new hires, with a lot of support from experienced staff, and applicants don’t need to have a medical background.

“We do four weeks of training in the classroom going through every kind of call and practising software,” Alberts said. “We use a system that walks you through any call there is. For anything you’re going to ask a caller the software will give you that information on the screen, guiding you through the call. You’re with someone experienced for the first 28 shifts.”

When someone calls 9-1-1 they are directed to E-Comm in Vancouver first which will ask if they need police, fire or an ambulance. If an ambulance is needed the call goes to one of the three provincial dispatch centres. Call takers start by getting the city and address for the person in need.

“We collect critical information for paramedics and triage all the calls we receive, which ones we need to send resources to first,” Alberts said. “We determine if it’s the patient calling or someone else, what happened and whether the patient is awake or breathing. We choose different protocols off the screen to guide us through the process.”

Call-takers then line up appropriate resources that are available in the area to respond.

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Alberts recalled a memorable call he responded to in the past.

“I was on call with an older gentleman and his wife had a cardiac arrest, and here I’m coaching him how to do CPR and he’s in an apartment and he’s struggling," he said. "The crews arrive, I’m listening, and hear a shocked advised —that means there is a shockable rhythm, it means the gentleman has been doing a good job in terms of CPR. They got spontaneous circulation and her heart started beating again. That’s the reward, you are saving lives on the end of the phone.”

From time to time a call taker might take a more difficult, traumatic kind of call so a critical incident stress program is in place to support and teach employees how to process and compartmentalize things.

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B.C. Emergency Health Services is looking to hire 12 call takers in January and more in March in all three centres.

The work schedule is two nights and two days of 12 hours shifts followed by six days off, with a starting wage of $31.65 per hour.

Applications for emergency medical call takers will be accepted until Nov. 20. 

To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Ainslie or call 250-819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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