The provincial government announced last week it aims to increase the number of rural paramedics in western Manitoba by increasing the number of training seats.
Next year, Brandon-based Assiniboine College will be offering a primary care paramedic (PCP) training program that will begin in January 2027. It will have 32 seats. Sixteen of those seats will be offered at the college’s Dauphin campus. The other seats will be offered at Assinboine’s other campuses later that year.
The government made a $115,000 investment so that the college can create a new rotating rural-training model for paramedic training.
“Paramedics are the first to arrive when your family needs emergency care, and their work is valued by our government,” said Premier Wab Kinew in a May 14 news release. “We’ve made progress training and hiring more paramedics in Westman, but we know there is more to do. That’s why we are creating a new primary care paramedic program at Assiniboine College.”
The government is also creating a new child-care centre at the Brandon hospital to care for health-care workers’ children while they’re on shift.
The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP) said last month that there has been a decline in the number of rural paramedics in Manitoba over a two-year period.
Rural paramedic numbers dropped from 519 in December 2023 to 485 in December 2025, a net loss of 34 paramedics, said the union.
MAHCP president Jason Linklater said in a May 14 statement that the critical shortage of paramedics and the government’s election commitment to add 200 net new paramedics requires a “significant mobilization of resources and focus” in order to retain, train and recruit them.
After two and half years of the current government, he said paramedics haven’t seen that level of commitment.
“With recent Shared Health data showing growing paramedic shortages across the province, and dangerously long 911 response times in many rural communities, Manitoba needs urgent action to retain, train and recruit more primary care paramedics. … MAHCP has been pushing the province to expand PCP education for more than two years as other provinces have already done. Our recommendations have included bringing back a rotating rural PCP education program like the one that was announced today,” said Linklater.
The government’s new PCP program is a start, he added, but additional training expansion is “urgently needed.”
Saskatchewan by comparison has created 252 PCP education seats.
The provincial government should also be covering the cost of PCP education to fill training seats and get graduates to work in Manitoba, and launch an earn-as-you-learn EMR-to-PCP education pathway that was promised last year.
“Finally, we can’t afford to lose any more experienced paramedics while we wait more than two years for new graduates to finish this new program,” said Linklater. “Government also needs to pull out all the stops to retain the paramedics we have.”
A spokesperson for provincial Shared Health, which is responsible for rural paramedics, said the recruitment of paramedics across Canada to work in rural and remote areas has been a challenge.
“EMS services throughout Canada have experienced challenges recruiting primary care paramedics (PCPs), particularly in rural and remote areas,” said the spokesperson. “Shared Health continues to actively recruit and retain PCPs across Manitoba while taking steps to maintain service levels in areas experiencing vacancies.”
One of the strategies Shared Health is implementing is training and incorporating emergency medical responders (EMRs) into a “range of support and clinical roles within the EMS system.” That includes ambulance services and VECTRS, or the Virtual Emergency Care and Transfer Resource Service, which is a centralized source for clinical guidance and patient transport that was launched in 2023.
EMRs are not trained to the level of paramedics and have a reduced scope of practice.
The Express asked if Shared Health is using PCP funding to hire EMRs as claimed by MAHCP.
The spokesperson said that in the eastern zone [which includes the Interlake], EMRs have been temporarily assigned while recruitment continues.
“To help maintain service levels in the eastern EMS zone, some existing EMS staffing resources have been temporarily allocated to support limited EMR hiring while recruitment efforts continue,” said the spokesperson.
The PCP vacancy rate in the eastern zone was 26.3 per cent as of May 7, said the spokesperson when asked what the current PCP vacancy rate is in the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority. And one EMR has been hired in the eastern zone.
Shared Health does not currently have a verified province-wide net-loss figure for PCPs available, said the spokesperson when asked to verify losses.
“Recruitment efforts remain ongoing across Manitoba, including through provincial training pathways, targeted recruitment initiatives and continued work to strengthen the rural EMS workforce,” they said.
