Official Response from the Trent University Emergency First Response Team Regarding the January 30th, 2019 Article in the Arthur Campus Newspaper
This statement is being issued in response to the January 30th, 2019 article published in the Arthur campus newspaper titled “TUEFRT: Our First Responders are the Last to Respond”. We would like to take this as an opportunity to clarify any misconceptions and help educate the Trent community on how we operate, as well as acknowledge concerns and apologize to anyone who has ever had a negative experience with TUEFRT, whether as a patient or as a member of our team. The TUEFRT website has been updated to address some of the information that has been identified as lacking by this article, including a summary of our budget.
To address the outlined concerns we will describe our dispatching process, explain why we do not have a line to call responders directly, explain why someone may experience a longer wait time for responders to arrive at a call, and explain our treatment and patient care processes once on scene.
CONCERN REGARDING DISPATCHING
The phone number 705-748-1333 is the Trent Security emergency line, and TUEFRT is not responsible for managing this line. Calling this number will connect you to a Campus Security employee, they will gather pertinent information, and if medical attention is required TUEFRT will be radioed with the location and nature of the emergency. Responders carry hand-held radios with them at all times in order to be notified of calls. In response to the concern regarding a 35-40 minute response time, we can reassure the community that this issue was taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. It was discovered that this resulted from an issue with security dispatching, and that TUEFRT responders were not immediately made aware of the call, however once notified responders were on scene within five minutes. The events regarding this delay in notification were investigated by Campus Security, and immediate action was taken to ensure this does not happen again.
Similar to other campus response teams and emergency services, TUEFRT does not have a direct line. There are several reasons for this, one being the ability to monitor phone lines. Responders are not required to stay in the office, and as students are often in class or in the library. A landline would not be able to be efficiently monitored. Furthermore, responders may sleep during night shifts and a cell phone may not be loud enough to wake them. The current system also means that the dispatcher can continue to gather information and relay it as responders are making their way to the call.
Our average response time is currently under seven minutes. Upon being notified by dispatch, we make our way on foot as quickly and as safely as possible to the call location. However, maintaining a calm and collected composure when entering a scene is important to ensure that responders themselves are able to provide the best care possible, and to ensure that they are not exacerbating an already stressful situation.
The new TUEFRT office in the Student Centre does allow us a more central location for responding to calls. However, responders are not required to stay in the office on shifts, meaning that when a call comes in they could be anywhere on campus, which will influence the transit time to a call. Additionally, when we get a call to Traill College or one of the Annexes we get driven by security and due to the location of these college residences our response time is increased.
CONCERN REGARDING LEVEL OF CARE
As the article mentions, the training we receive is “statistically expensive”. We do this training in order to give the Trent University community the best possible care, and this level of training is on par with what other campus response teams in Canada receive. After completing Standard First Aid during the tryout process, all of our responders complete the Red Cross First Responder (FR) course, and then the Emergency Medical Responder course (EMR). FR is a prerequisite for EMR. EMR is the highest level of first aid available to the public and is recognized by the Paramedic Association of Canada, with the next highest level of training being Primary Care Paramedic.
The January 30th article brought up how a ‘trainee’ was attending to the patient despite the medical emergency. Every member of our team is certified to at least Canadian Red Cross Standard First Aid and has passed internal skills evaluations assessing their readiness to respond to any type of emergency. When we have new members on the team, they are encouraged to participate in calls so that they can improve, however they are always placed on call with a senior responder who oversees the entire call and is ready to step in when needed. This is an example of active learning, and is a generally-accepted practice in the medical industry, common among nursing, paramedic, and medical students. Giving our patients the best care possible while simultaneously giving our new members the practical experience they need to grow is what we strive for.
We do not currently have a system in place to create care plans for individuals who are likely to frequently require assistance from TUEFRT. The main obstacle to creating a system like this rests in the limitations of our training. TUEFRT frequently responds to non-emergency calls, however the majority of our training is geared towards responding to life-threatening emergencies. Because of the limitations of our certifications, we cannot make the assumption that every time we see a patient it will be for the same reasons and symptoms, therefore we must respond to every call following our standard training and protocols. While we can provide supportive care and perform life-saving interventions, we are not medical professionals and cannot make diagnoses. There will be cases that are beyond our scope of training, and in these situations our main goal is to provide supportive care within our level of training until paramedics arrive.
BUDGET & TRANSPARENCY
The January 30th article discusses how our“budget is unaccounted for”. In an effort to be more transparent, TUEFRT has posted an overview of our finances on our website. The TUEFRT budget is overseen by the executive board, the governing board, and the TCSA. Please see the ‘Finances’ section of our website for more information.
Another expense of ours includes our membership fees to the Association of Campus Emergency Response Teams (ACERT). ACERT is an association that supports the unity of Canadian post-secondary campus response teams. Our membership with them helps us share and collaborate ideas with other teams to ensure we are operating as smoothly as possible, as well as giving us access to supplier discounts. Each year an ACERT member school hosts the National Conference of Campus Emergency Responders (NCCER). In the past they also hosted a fall conference called MIXER (not an acronym), however this is no longer held. These conferences bring together teams from across Canada to practice skills in competitions as well as attend educational seminars and lectures from professionals in the first response field. These conferences are partially subsidized by the team, and responders are still required to pay out of pocket.
EXPECTATIONS OF BEHAVIOUR
This leads us into the second part of the article, which describes instances of hazing, harassment, and excessive alcohol consumption at team events. First of all, we would like to acknowledge that these events did take place, apologize to any team member, either past or present who experienced these, and outline the steps we’ve taken in recent years to address these issues.
We would however, like to stress that the current executive and governing board is not aware of any of the instances mentioned in the January 30th article taking place among the current team. Since a large turnover in team members following the 2016-2017 year, we have been working incredibly hard to change the culture of the team to be more welcoming and accepting to everyone, and ‘rookie parties’ are no longer an accepted practice. After receiving an official complaint regarding these issues at the beginning of this school year, we have taken significant steps including implementing mandatory group dynamics and anti-hazing awareness training, led by a representative from the Office of Student Affairs. The article mentions instances of members drinking in the evening, and not going to conference events the next day. Since last year we have implemented contracts that each conference attendee must sign, stating that if any conference events are missed then the subsidization from the team is revoked and individuals must pay the full cost out of pocket. We would also like to make it clear that student levy money has never been used to purchase alcohol. Our team is overseen by a governing board made up of members of the university administration, and in recent years they have been given more direct management of the team in order to oversee our processes and receive itineraries and summaries of every team event.
FINAL COMMENTS
As members of the current team, we would like to acknowledge the concerns from the community and our past members. While we cannot apologize on behalf of team members no longer here, we remain apologetic for the negative experiences and concerns that were brought up in the January 30th article. We are committed to continuing with the improvements that have already been made, and we will always welcome feedback on how we can improve further. We want to reassure the Trent Community that we are committed to creating a safe environment, both for the members of the Trent Community and for those volunteering their time to be a part of our team.
Sincerely,
The 2018-2019 Trent University Emergency First Response Team
This statement is being issued in response to the January 30th, 2019 article published in the Arthur campus newspaper titled “TUEFRT: Our First Responders are the Last to Respond”. We would like to take this as an opportunity to clarify any misconceptions and help educate the Trent community on how we operate, as well as acknowledge concerns and apologize to anyone who has ever had a negative experience with TUEFRT, whether as a patient or as a member of our team. The TUEFRT website has been updated to address some of the information that has been identified as lacking by this article, including a summary of our budget.
To address the outlined concerns we will describe our dispatching process, explain why we do not have a line to call responders directly, explain why someone may experience a longer wait time for responders to arrive at a call, and explain our treatment and patient care processes once on scene.
CONCERN REGARDING DISPATCHING
The phone number 705-748-1333 is the Trent Security emergency line, and TUEFRT is not responsible for managing this line. Calling this number will connect you to a Campus Security employee, they will gather pertinent information, and if medical attention is required TUEFRT will be radioed with the location and nature of the emergency. Responders carry hand-held radios with them at all times in order to be notified of calls. In response to the concern regarding a 35-40 minute response time, we can reassure the community that this issue was taken very seriously and thoroughly investigated. It was discovered that this resulted from an issue with security dispatching, and that TUEFRT responders were not immediately made aware of the call, however once notified responders were on scene within five minutes. The events regarding this delay in notification were investigated by Campus Security, and immediate action was taken to ensure this does not happen again.
Similar to other campus response teams and emergency services, TUEFRT does not have a direct line. There are several reasons for this, one being the ability to monitor phone lines. Responders are not required to stay in the office, and as students are often in class or in the library. A landline would not be able to be efficiently monitored. Furthermore, responders may sleep during night shifts and a cell phone may not be loud enough to wake them. The current system also means that the dispatcher can continue to gather information and relay it as responders are making their way to the call.
Our average response time is currently under seven minutes. Upon being notified by dispatch, we make our way on foot as quickly and as safely as possible to the call location. However, maintaining a calm and collected composure when entering a scene is important to ensure that responders themselves are able to provide the best care possible, and to ensure that they are not exacerbating an already stressful situation.
The new TUEFRT office in the Student Centre does allow us a more central location for responding to calls. However, responders are not required to stay in the office on shifts, meaning that when a call comes in they could be anywhere on campus, which will influence the transit time to a call. Additionally, when we get a call to Traill College or one of the Annexes we get driven by security and due to the location of these college residences our response time is increased.
CONCERN REGARDING LEVEL OF CARE
As the article mentions, the training we receive is “statistically expensive”. We do this training in order to give the Trent University community the best possible care, and this level of training is on par with what other campus response teams in Canada receive. After completing Standard First Aid during the tryout process, all of our responders complete the Red Cross First Responder (FR) course, and then the Emergency Medical Responder course (EMR). FR is a prerequisite for EMR. EMR is the highest level of first aid available to the public and is recognized by the Paramedic Association of Canada, with the next highest level of training being Primary Care Paramedic.
The January 30th article brought up how a ‘trainee’ was attending to the patient despite the medical emergency. Every member of our team is certified to at least Canadian Red Cross Standard First Aid and has passed internal skills evaluations assessing their readiness to respond to any type of emergency. When we have new members on the team, they are encouraged to participate in calls so that they can improve, however they are always placed on call with a senior responder who oversees the entire call and is ready to step in when needed. This is an example of active learning, and is a generally-accepted practice in the medical industry, common among nursing, paramedic, and medical students. Giving our patients the best care possible while simultaneously giving our new members the practical experience they need to grow is what we strive for.
We do not currently have a system in place to create care plans for individuals who are likely to frequently require assistance from TUEFRT. The main obstacle to creating a system like this rests in the limitations of our training. TUEFRT frequently responds to non-emergency calls, however the majority of our training is geared towards responding to life-threatening emergencies. Because of the limitations of our certifications, we cannot make the assumption that every time we see a patient it will be for the same reasons and symptoms, therefore we must respond to every call following our standard training and protocols. While we can provide supportive care and perform life-saving interventions, we are not medical professionals and cannot make diagnoses. There will be cases that are beyond our scope of training, and in these situations our main goal is to provide supportive care within our level of training until paramedics arrive.
BUDGET & TRANSPARENCY
The January 30th article discusses how our“budget is unaccounted for”. In an effort to be more transparent, TUEFRT has posted an overview of our finances on our website. The TUEFRT budget is overseen by the executive board, the governing board, and the TCSA. Please see the ‘Finances’ section of our website for more information.
Another expense of ours includes our membership fees to the Association of Campus Emergency Response Teams (ACERT). ACERT is an association that supports the unity of Canadian post-secondary campus response teams. Our membership with them helps us share and collaborate ideas with other teams to ensure we are operating as smoothly as possible, as well as giving us access to supplier discounts. Each year an ACERT member school hosts the National Conference of Campus Emergency Responders (NCCER). In the past they also hosted a fall conference called MIXER (not an acronym), however this is no longer held. These conferences bring together teams from across Canada to practice skills in competitions as well as attend educational seminars and lectures from professionals in the first response field. These conferences are partially subsidized by the team, and responders are still required to pay out of pocket.
EXPECTATIONS OF BEHAVIOUR
This leads us into the second part of the article, which describes instances of hazing, harassment, and excessive alcohol consumption at team events. First of all, we would like to acknowledge that these events did take place, apologize to any team member, either past or present who experienced these, and outline the steps we’ve taken in recent years to address these issues.
We would however, like to stress that the current executive and governing board is not aware of any of the instances mentioned in the January 30th article taking place among the current team. Since a large turnover in team members following the 2016-2017 year, we have been working incredibly hard to change the culture of the team to be more welcoming and accepting to everyone, and ‘rookie parties’ are no longer an accepted practice. After receiving an official complaint regarding these issues at the beginning of this school year, we have taken significant steps including implementing mandatory group dynamics and anti-hazing awareness training, led by a representative from the Office of Student Affairs. The article mentions instances of members drinking in the evening, and not going to conference events the next day. Since last year we have implemented contracts that each conference attendee must sign, stating that if any conference events are missed then the subsidization from the team is revoked and individuals must pay the full cost out of pocket. We would also like to make it clear that student levy money has never been used to purchase alcohol. Our team is overseen by a governing board made up of members of the university administration, and in recent years they have been given more direct management of the team in order to oversee our processes and receive itineraries and summaries of every team event.
FINAL COMMENTS
As members of the current team, we would like to acknowledge the concerns from the community and our past members. While we cannot apologize on behalf of team members no longer here, we remain apologetic for the negative experiences and concerns that were brought up in the January 30th article. We are committed to continuing with the improvements that have already been made, and we will always welcome feedback on how we can improve further. We want to reassure the Trent Community that we are committed to creating a safe environment, both for the members of the Trent Community and for those volunteering their time to be a part of our team.
Sincerely,
The 2018-2019 Trent University Emergency First Response Team