ESTEVAN — Kayla Saretzky is relatively new to the emergency medical services (EMS) profession, but she has gained a quick appreciation for its importance to health care.
A restricted primary care paramedic, Saretzky has been in EMS for about a year, driving the ambulance and sitting in the back with the patient. There are tough days as a driver, especially in the winter when they have to travel to Regina in adverse conditions with a patient who needs a higher level of care.
When in the back of the vehicle, she said she has a constant eye on the patient.
"We're doing paperwork, checking vital signs and whatever they need, whether that's just talking, giving a hand to hold or distracting a kid with one of our stuffed animals we have on the truck. It's different every ride we take," she said in an interview with SaskToday.
Saretzky started working with the EMS in Oxbow, and also has shifts in Weyburn, Estevan, Carnduff and Redvers. During the interview with SaskToday for National EMS Week, she was working out of Carnduff. Most of her time is spent in Estevan, and she will be taking a position with the EMS crew in the Energy City in the summer.
"I'll still be holding my casual [work] in those other communities. I just won't have as much time for them."
She's able to work her own schedule and is asked if she can work. She admits she's known for overcrowding her schedule.
"It's something different every day, and you get to help people as their last resort, but it's really good to see when it does work," she said.
Prior to joining EMS, she worked in the mining industry in the Lanigan area. She became a paramedic because Saretzky said she wanted to work in health care. She went through a nine-month, in-school course, and then she had to complete practicums.
People are very appreciative of the work she does, she said. The career definitely isn't for everyone, but if it's of interest, she said it will be great.
"There are good days and bad days, and challenges in different ways than you would have in other jobs," she said.
Saretzky said the people she works with in the EMS in the southeast are great, and she wouldn't be where she is now without them.
