MPPA Ahead Of Its Time?

Some of you will remember the Manitoba Prehospital Professions Association (MPPA)...many of you may not. MPPA was the predecessor to PAM...it was our professional association through the 1980s and 90s. Not only did MPPA advocate for improvements in prehospital emergency care and self-regulation for paramedics, many of our colleagues involved with that association were also instrumental in establishing what we know today as the Paramedic Association of Canada.

The only fault the MPPA had was in its timing. Unfortunately it was an organization who's philosophies were decades ahead of what government and perhaps even the public was prepared to accept as possible at the time. Case in point was driven home by the announcement made by Health Minister Theresa Oswald when she indicated that costs for inter-facility transfers would no longer be billed to patients. The MPPA made that recommendation to the government's Emergency Services Task Force in January of 1993...yes...nineteen ninety-three!

Other recommendations made by the MPPA in that 1993 report include:

• Training for ambulance personnel should be done through qualified Educational facilities.

• All training programs should be CMA accredited.
  

• The contributions of the Provincial Government should be increased to bring Manitoba on par with the rest of Canada. (OK…maybe this hasn't happened yet!)

• Implementation of a provincial 9-1-1 system for ambulance, police, fire and poison control.

• Establishment of a repeater network for communication between ambulances and hospitals in Manitoba.

• Establishment of a central dispatch centre for rural Manitoba to coordinate the movement of ambulances and the transfer of patients.

• Improved communication between rural ambulances and Winnipeg ambulances.

I'm encouraged by the fact that government has chosen to adopt so many of these recommendations over the course of the past few years...albeit much slower than we might have liked and some in a slightly different format that imagined almost fifteen years ago. I'm also encouraged by the fact that the Paramedic Association of Manitoba is now considered by government to be a valuable stakeholder in Manitoba's emergency medical services, as evidenced by the fact that we are now more regularly consulted and quoted on issues such as the inter-facility transfer decision. But I really think many of our successes today are a result of the hard work and tenacity of those who came before us. To every involved in MPPA...Thanks!