The recruitment of new paramedics is below historical levels with just 88 new new recruits coming on board in the last four years.
Essex Windsor EMS celebrated the recruitment of 88 paramedics at a ceremony on Friday. These recruits represented new hires from 2020-2023.
"Understanding the environment, what was going on for the past four years, I feel very fortunate that we got those 88 people to stand up and join our ranks as paramedics," said EMS Chief Bruce Krauter.
Krauter indicated they are actively recruiting new members and are looking at adding paramedic aids to the team.
He said historically, they recruit around 30 people a year.
"Obviously, we want to take as many as we can because we're starting to have an attrition rate due to retirements, people moving on to different chapters of their life so if we can get back to the historical levels," said Krauter. " We always try to bring on at least 30 and I think we're going to have to make that bigger."
He said to help with training, St. Clair College has doubled admissions into the paramedics program from 30 to 60.
