I strongly believe that the paramedics on P.E.I. need an increase in pay before people stop going to school to become one. According to the Canadian Institute for Public Safety “the paramedics surveyed had higher levels of depression and anxiety, and lower levels of stress.” This shows that being a paramedic is a very stressful job. Paramedics deal with people in the worst moments of their life. They are the people that make life-changing decisions to keep you alive.

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People all over P.E.I. put their life and trust into paramedics every day, but according to the Government of Canada “the average paramedics on P.E.I. makes 27 dollars an hour” which is drastically lower than the national average wage.

Furthermore, there are not enough paramedics on the Island. According to a recent CBC article, “There are about 190 paramedics working on the Island, but that number should be closer to 220.” Also according to CBC, “in the last three months of 2024, the response time was 23 minutes and 23 seconds for Souris,” but according to Nuffieldtrust, “the national standard sets out that all ambulances must respond to Category 1 calls in 7 minutes.”

Right now we are 16 minutes over the national standard. That is unacceptable.

Therefore, I believe that we need to increase the pay of paramedics before there is no one willing to do the job.

Mia Morton,

Grade 10 student,

Souris Regional School

I believe that the shortage of health-care workers is leading the state of our society down a dangerous path. My reasons for coming to this conclusion are my own personal experience with a mom working in health care, the accepted culture of overworking the health-care employees we have left, and the long waits to get necessary testing like MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, etc.

I’ve watched firsthand this problem progressively worsen. According to a local nurse at Souris Hospital, “the stress and work conditions currently are so draining.” Do you the citizens of P.E..I really want this level of distress on our heroes?

We have accepted a culture of overworking the remaining health-care providers that we have left. Due to the shortage they are not getting proper ease-back after injury and constantly being called on their few days off to come in. This could lead to worse injury or burnout.

Lastly, I will be speaking on the fact of the long wait times to get necessary testing done due to the few professionals qualified to do it. According to the Fraser Institute, “Canada’s median health-care wait time hits 30 weeks — longest ever recorded”.

Therefore I believe the government needs to do something more to protect everyone. I believe if the pay was better, the system wouldn’t be in such a state of struggle right now.

AnnaBelle Campbell,

Grade 10 student,

Souris Regional School

I firmly believe that first responders are extremely overworked and........

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